designboom’s ultimate guide to the venice art biennale 2026

VENICE ART BIENNALE RETURNS FOR ITS 61st EDITION

 

The Venice Art Biennale returns for its 61st edition from May 9th to November 22nd, 2026, and designboom is here to guide you through this year’s main exhibition, national participations, collateral events, and everything unfolding across the city during the six-month event. Titled In Minor Keys, the 2026 International Art Exhibition was conceived by curator Koyo Kouoh, who developed the project before her passing in May 2025. The exhibition will be realized by the curatorial team she assembled, carrying forward the framework, artists, and exhibition architecture she had already defined. Conceived as an invitation to tune into quieter frequencies of artistic expression, In Minor Keys proposes a shift away from spectacle and toward slower, sensorial encounters with art. 

 

The exhibition unfolds across the Giardini and the Arsenale, with additional projects staged in various locations around Venice. Bringing together 111 invited participants, including artists, collectives, and artist-led organizations from across multiple geographies, Kouoh’s project explores resonances and affinities between practices that may emerge from vastly different contexts. Rather than organising the exhibition through rigid thematic sections, In Minor Keys follows a constellation of conceptual motifs that weave across the venues, ranging from shrines and processional assemblies to artist-led ‘schools’ and spaces of rest that encourage reflection and deep listening. 

As every year, designboom’s guide unpacks the key information surrounding the 61st International Art Exhibition, highlighting the main exhibition, national pavilions, and must-see events taking place throughout Venice. Read on to discover the projects and exhibitions shaping this year’s Biennale Arte, and follow our dedicated Venice Biennale coverage for updates from the opening days and beyond.

illustration by Haus of Grace

 

 

tuning into the ‘minor keys’

 

At the heart of the 61st Venice Art Biennale lies the curatorial concept of In Minor Keys, a title borrowed from musical terminology that evokes both the structure of a composition and its emotional register. In music, minor keys often carry tones of melancholy, reflection, and intimacy. Transposed into the context of the Biennale, the idea becomes a metaphor for artistic practices that operate at quieter frequencies, privileging sensitivity, affect, and collective imagination over spectacle. 

 

Rather than positioning art as a direct commentary on global crises, the exhibition seeks to reconnect artistic practice with emotional and sensory experience. Kouoh envisioned the Biennale as a space where artists create environments that invite visitors to slow down, listen, and engage with art through intuition as much as interpretation. In this sense, the exhibition foregrounds artistic practices that open portals to alternative ways of perceiving the world, encouraging moments of reflection, reverie, and encounter. 

 

Across the Giardini and Arsenale, the exhibition unfolds through a set of conceptual motifs that function less as sections and more as undercurrents connecting different works. These include ‘Shrines,’ which pay tribute to influential artistic figures; processional assemblies inspired by collective rituals and gatherings; ‘Schools,’ highlighting artist-led spaces of knowledge and exchange; and oases of rest that create moments of pause within the exhibition journey. Together, these strands shape a multisensory exhibition landscape where artworks, performances, and installations unfold as part of a broader choreography of encounters. 

portrait of Koyo Kouoh | photo by Mirjam Kluka, courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

 

 

the international exhibition across giardini and arsenale

 

The central exhibition of In Minor Keys takes place at the historic venues of the Giardini and the Arsenale, where the 111 invited participants present installations, sculptures, films, performances, and interdisciplinary projects that expand the sensory and spatial experience of the Biennale. The exhibition design, developed by Wolff Architects, emphasises the idea of thresholds and transitions between artistic worlds. Sweeping indigo textile banners mark these passages throughout the exhibition, creating moments where visitors move between different atmospheres and conceptual constellations. 

 

Within the Central Pavilion at the Giardini, one of the exhibition’s defining motifs appears through the presentation of Shrines, conceived as tributes to two influential figures whose practices shaped broader artistic and cultural conversations: Senegalese artist and playwright Issa Samb and American sculptor Beverly Buchanan. Across both venues, the exhibition also incorporates performative and collective elements inspired by the idea of procession. Drawing on choreographies found in carnivals and gatherings across the Afro-Atlantic world, these processional forms invite visitors to become participants within the exhibition’s spatial narrative rather than remaining passive observers.

 

Beyond the Giardini and the Arsenale, the Biennale extends to additional sites across Venice and its mainland territories. At Forte Marghera, a series of special projects expands the curatorial framework of In Minor Keys, inviting visitors to engage with installations and environments designed for play, interaction, and reflection. These projects extend the exhibition’s focus on sensory experience and collective encounter beyond the traditional exhibition halls. Another key component of the exhibition is the Applied Arts Pavilion at the Arsenale, developed in collaboration with London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. For this edition, artist Gala Porras-Kim presents a project that examines the relationships between cultural artefacts, museum conservation practices, and the institutional systems that shape how objects are interpreted and preserved within museum collections. 

 

 

performances and live events

 

The Biennale includes a program of performances that places the body at the center of artistic knowledge, memory, and collective experience. These live events unfold across the exhibition venues and extend the conceptual framework of In Minor Keys through choreography, poetry, and ritual gatherings. One of the key moments of the program is a procession of poets in the Giardini, inspired by Koyo Kouoh’s Poetry Caravan, a journey she undertook in 1999 with nine African poets travelling from Dakar to Timbuktu. The performance brings together poets in a collective recital that honors oral traditions and storytelling, transforming the Giardini into a space of shared reflection and spiritual resonance. 

image by Francesco Galli, courtesy La Biennale di Venezia

 

 

99 national pavilions will participate in the 2026 edition

 

Alongside the central exhibition, the Venice Art Biennale expands across the city through its national participations, which unfold within the historic pavilions of the Giardini, the Arsenale, and numerous venues scattered throughout Venice. Each of the 99 participating countries presents its own exhibition developed by invited artists and curators, offering distinct perspectives that reflect local artistic contexts while engaging with broader global conversations. Together, these national participations form one of the defining elements of the Biennale, transforming Venice into a dense network of exhibitions that visitors encounter across palazzos, churches, foundations, and historic spaces throughout the lagoon city. 

This year’s edition also welcomes several new participants, with Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Nauru, Qatar, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Vietnam joining the Biennale. In addition, El Salvador presents a pavilion of its own for the first time. Together with returning countries, these exhibitions transform Venice into a dense network of artistic projects spread across palazzos, foundations, and historic buildings throughout the lagoon city. At the same time, South Africa will not participate in the 2026 edition, marking a notable absence from the Biennale’s national pavilion program.

 

 

PAVILION OF ALBANIA

 

Genti Korini represents Albania with A Place in the Sun, curated by Małgorzata Ludwisiak. The project at the Albanian Pavilion explores collective memory and ideology, linking the disquiet of the present to the unsettled dreams of a century ago when borders, languages, and identities were in flux.

 

Working between fiction and historical reality, Korini draws on Albania’s cultural and political histories to examine how images and forms reflect the shifting aesthetics of modernity, post-communism, and the contemporary neoliberal landscape.

Sun Pattern ~ color pencils on millimetric paper, computer altered. 2026 | image via @gentikorini

 

title: A Place in the Sun | @albanianpavilion2026

commissioner: Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport

curator: Małgorzata Ludwisiak

exhibitor: Genti Korini | @gentikorini

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF ARGENTINA

 

Argentina presents Monitor Yin Yang, a project by Matías Duville curated by Josefina Barcia. The installation takes the form of a monumental drawing made with salt and charcoal that spreads across the floor of the Argentine Pavilion, gradually transforming as visitors move through the space and become part of the work itself.

 

Known for his atmospheric drawings of desolate landscapes and imagined terrains, Duville explores the tension between material gesture and mental landscape, creating scenes that feel suspended between memory, catastrophe, and dream.

image via @monitoryinyang

 

title: Monitor Yin Yang | @monitoryinyang

commissioner: Directorate for Cultural Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship

curator: Josefina Barcia

exhibitor: Matías Duville

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF ARMENIA

 

For the Armenian Pavilion, Zadik Zadikian turns the exhibition space into a live site of making with The Studio, curated by Tony Shafrazi and Tina Chakarian. Throughout the Biennale, the artist and his assistants will continuously cast, stack, and rearrange plaster bricks, allowing the installation to grow and shift over time.

 

Rooted in Zadikian’s long exploration of repetition, labour, and modular form, the project foregrounds the act of making itself, opening the traditionally private space of artistic production to public view.

Render, 2026

 

title: The Studio | @armenia.pavilion.2026

commissioner: Svetlana Sahakyan

curator: Tony Shafrazi, Tina Chakarian

exhibitor: Zadik Zadikian

venue: Fondamenta Case Nuove 2738/C, Castello – Tesa 41, Arsenale Militare

 

 

PAVILION OF AUSTRALIA

 

Australia presents ‘conference of one’s self’, an immersive project by Khaled Sabsabi curated by Michael Dagostino for the Australia Pavilion in the Giardini. Drawing on the artist’s decades-long engagement with spirituality, migration, and social justice, the installation explores the interconnectedness of inner and collective experience through shifting atmospheres of sound, image, and space.

 

In a historic first for Australia, Sabsabi will also participate in the Biennale’s central exhibition In Minor Keys, creating a dialogue between the national pavilion and the main exhibition.

Khaled Sabsabi, At the speed of light, 2016, Photo by Anna Kucera. Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane

 

title: conference of one’s self

commissioner: Creative Australia

curator: Michael Dagostino

exhibitor: Khaled Sabsabi | @peacefender

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF AUSTRIA

 

Florentina Holzinger transforms the Austrian Pavilion with SEAWORLD VENICE, a new interdisciplinary commission curated by Nora-Swantje Almes. Imagined as part underwater theme park, part sewage plant, and part ritual architecture, the installation stages a live environment where performers inhabit a shifting landscape shaped by water, bodies, and machines.

 

Expanding across Venice through a series of public performances titled Études, the project reflects on ecological precarity and the unstable relationship between nature, technology, and human survival.

Florentina Holzinger, A Year without Summer | image © Mayra Wallraff

 

title: SEAWORLD VENICE 

commissioner: The Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport Republic of Austria

curator: Nora-Swantje Almes

exhibitor: Florentina Holzinger | @floholzinger

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF AZERBAIJAN

 

Azerbaijan’s national pavilion centres on The Attention, an immersive project by artist Faig Ahmed curated by Gwendolyn Collaço. Structured as a sequence of interconnected spaces, the installation reflects on the anxiety and information overload of the contemporary era while inviting visitors to reconnect with inner consciousness.

 

Drawing on the legacy of Azerbaijani poet Imadaddin Nasimi and the Hurufi philosophical tradition, Ahmed combines traditional craft with advanced technologies to explore new ways of understanding reality.

Doubts (2020) | image by Günzel/Rademacher © Museum Angewandte Kunst via @faigahmedstudio

 

title: The Attention | @azerbaijan.pavilion.venice

commissioner: Rashad Aslanov

curator: Gwendolyn Collaço

exhibitor: Faig Ahmed | @faigahmedstudio

venue: Campo della Tana, Castello

 

 

PAVILION OF THE BAHAMAS

 

The Bahamas returns to the Venice Biennale with In Another Man’s Yard: John Beadle, Lavar Munroe, and the Spirit of (Posthumous) Collaboration, curated by art historian Krista Thompson. The pavilion brings together works by the late John Beadle and contemporary artist Lavar Munroe, creating a dialogue between generations rooted in Bahamian cultural traditions such as Junkanoo.

 

Through sculptural assemblages and mixed-media works made from salvaged materials, the project highlights the creative potential of what is often overlooked or discarded, reflecting on memory, identity, and the resilience of Caribbean artistic practices.

Wonderful (Barochin) Wrist watch, store bought peacock plum/feather, plastic roses, toy solider, cosmetic jewellery, wooden sculpted gun, beads, concrete, rhinestones, collage, acrylic and spray paint on canvas 70 1/2” x 58” 2023 | via @lavar.munroe.studio

 

title: In Another Man’s Yard: John Beadle, Lavar Munroe, and the Spirit of (Posthumous) Collaboration

commissioner: John Cox

curator: Krista Thompson

exhibitor: John Beadle, Lavar Munroe | @lavar.munroe.studio 

venue: San Trovaso Art Space, Dorsoduro

 

 

PAVILION OF BELGIUM

 

Performance takes centre stage at the Belgian Pavilion with IT NEVER SSST, a new work by Miet Warlop curated by Caroline Dumalin. Blending sculpture, music, choreography, and theatrical ritual, the project transforms the pavilion into a dynamic arena where performers activate plaster words and fragmented language through physical actions and collective movement. Oscillating between chaos and resilience, Warlop’s installation-performance reflects on the urgency of human connection in an unstable world where meaning itself feels increasingly fragile.

title: IT NEVER SSST

commissioner: Caroline Gennez

curator: Caroline Dumalin

exhibitor: Miet Warlop | @miet_warlop

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

 

Domus Diasporica by Mladen Bundalo forms the presentation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, curated by Isidora Živković. Developed through the artist’s long-term research into the idea of home, the project reflects on migration, identity, and belonging through the lens of personal experience and life across multiple geographies.

 

Working between film, writing, and visual art, Bundalo approaches the pavilion as a psychogeographic exploration of diaspora and the shifting meanings of place and cultural memory.

 

title: Domus Diasporica

commissioner: Sarita Vujković

curator: Isidora Živković

exhibitor: Mladen Bundalo | @mladen.bundalo.9

venue: Palazzo Malipiero, San Marco

 

 

PAVILION OF BRAZIL

 

Brazil’s pavilion brings together artists Rosana Paulino and Adriana Varejão in ‘Comigo ninguém pode’, a project curated by Diane Lima. Borrowing its title from the Dieffenbachia plant and a Brazilian expression meaning ‘nobody can handle me,’ the exhibition reflects on protection, toxicity, and resilience through the intertwined legacies of colonialism and historical memory.

 

Through works that confront colonial wounds while imagining processes of transformation and renewal, the project stages a powerful dialogue between two of Brazil’s most influential contemporary artists.

Parede com incisões, Adriana Varejão

 

title: Comigo ninguém pode

commissioner: Andrea Pinheiro

curator: Diane Lima

exhibitor: Rosana Paulino | @rosanapaulino.oficial, Adriana Varejão | @adrianavarejao

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF BULGARIA

 

Bulgaria’s pavilion features The Federation of Minor Practices, a group project curated by Martina Yordanova and commissioned by Dessislava Dimova. Bringing together artists Gery Georgieva, Maria Nalbantova, Rayna Teneva, and Veneta Androva, the exhibition reflects on alternative artistic strategies and collaborative modes of production.

 

Through diverse media and approaches, the project explores smaller, often overlooked cultural gestures as forms of resistance and collective imagination within contemporary society.

Balkan Idol (2015) HD video 4‘00“ ©Gery Georgieva

 

title: The Federation of Minor Practices | @bulgarianpavilion.arte

commissioner: Dessislava Dimova

curator: Martina Yordanova

exhibitor: Gery Georgieva, Maria Nalbantova, Rayna Teneva, Veneta Androva

venue: Centro Culturale Don Orione Artigianelli, Zattere

 

 

PAVILION OF CANADA

 

At the Canada Pavilion, Abbas Akhavan unveils ‘Entre chien et loup’, an installation shaped by the artist’s ongoing exploration of place, memory, and political geography. Working across sculpture, video, drawing, and ephemeral installations, Akhavan investigates how architecture, landscapes, and everyday environments carry traces of conflict and historical transformation. Gardens, backyards, and other cultivated spaces recur throughout his practice, becoming quiet sites where questions of belonging, loss, and contested narratives unfold.

Abbas Akhavan, variations on a folly, 2022, scaffold, plywood, pond liner, aggregate, clay, garden silt, soil, rocks, water, pond pump and tubing, plants sourced from the gardens, hardware, full spectrum lights, installation dimensions variable. Installation view, study for a garden, Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, UK, 2022. Photo: Keith Hunter. Courtesy Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver and The Third Line, Dubai

 

title: Abbas Akhavan: Entre chien et loup

commissioner: National Gallery of Canada

curator: Kim Nguyen

exhibitor: Abbas Akhavan

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF CHILE

 

With Inter-Reality, artist Norton Maza constructs a multisensory installation for the Chilean Pavilion, curated by Marisa Caichiolo and Dermis León. The work unfolds as an architectural and perceptual landscape where illusion, sound, and sculptural elements intersect, encouraging visitors to navigate multiple perspectives.

 

From a South American vantage point, the project engages questions of power, truth, and collective memory in an era defined by political and environmental instability. 

Pavilion of Chile, Biennale Arte 2026, courtesy of Norton Maza

 

title: Inter-Reality

commissioner: Florencia Loewenthal

curator: Marisa Caichiolo, Dermis Pérez León

exhibitor: Norton Maza | @nortonmaza

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF CYPRUS

 

Cyprus brings Marina Xenofontos to the 61st Venice Art Biennale with ‘It rests to the bones’, curated by Kyle Dancewicz. Through an installation combining sculpture, video, and sound, the project explores personal and cultural memory while revisiting Cypriot folk traditions and overlooked micro-histories. By recontextualising everyday cultural objects, Xenofontos examines how collective narratives are formed, questioned, and reshaped across time.

image via @cyprusinvenice

 

title: It rests to the bones | @cyprusinvenice

commissioner: Ioanna Hadjicosti

curator: Kyle Dancewicz

exhibitor: Marina Xenofontos | @afictionalastronaut

venue: Associazione Culturale Spiazzi, Castello

 

 

PAVILION OF DENMARK

 

The Danish Pavilion presents Things To Come, a new commission by Maja Malou Lyse, curated by Chus Martínez. The project examines how science, fiction, and pornography intersect in a moment where images increasingly biological and social realities. Taking its title from the 1936 sci-fi film inspired by H.G. Wells, the exhibition reframes speculation through the lens of the present. Drawing on research into virtual stimuli and fertility, Lyse considers how image consumption operates beyond representation, entering the body as an active force.

Maja Malou Lyse, Things to Come — behind the scenes (2026) | image by Zoe Chait

 

title: Things to Come

commissioner: The Danish Arts Foundation

curator: Chus Martínez

exhibitor: Maja Malou Lyse | @habitual_body_monitoring2

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF ECUADOR

 

Tawna & Óscar, curated by Manuela Moscoso, brings together the Tawna collective and artist Óscar Santillán for Ecuador’s pavilion. The exhibition explores alternative ways of understanding knowledge, territory, and community through practices rooted in Andean-Amazonian cultural and ecological perspectives. Moving between ancestral knowledge, technology, and collective experience, the project invites visitors to engage with art as a space of attention, relation, and shared imagination.

Óscar Santillán, Ghosts of Futures Past, 2023

 

title: TAWNA & Oscar

commissioner: Museum of Anthropology and Contemporary Art (MAAC) | @maacec

curator: Manuela Moscoso | @manu_moscoso

exhibitor: TAWNA collective | @tawna_cine, Óscar Santillán | @studio.antimundo

venue: Castello

 

 

PAVILION OF EL SALVADOR

 

El Salvador makes its debut with its own national pavilion at the Venice Biennale through Cartographies of the Displaced, a project by J. Oscar Molina curated by Alejandra Cabezas.

 

Presented at Palazzo Mora, the exhibition centres on the artist’s sculptural series Children of the World, reflecting on migration, diaspora, and the shared experiences of displaced communities. Through works shaped by personal history and collective memory, Molina explores how identity is carried, transformed, and reimagined across borders.

Children of the World, 2022 (detail) Concrete, various dimensions © 2022 Studio J. Oscar Molina

 

title: Cartographies of the Displaced

commissioner: Astrid María Bahamond

curator: Alejandra Cabezas

exhibitor: José Oscar Molina | @omolina.arts

venue: Palazzo Mora, Cannaregio

 

 

PAVILION OF EGYPT

 

Armen Agop brings Silence Pavilion: Between the Tangible and the Intangible to the Egyptian Pavilion in the Giardini. Through a new body of sculptures and paintings, the artist explores slowness, introspection, and the quiet intensity of form, inviting visitors into a space of reflection and heightened perception. Drawing on ancient Egyptian sculptural traditions and the stillness of desert landscapes, Agop’s practice investigates how material, time, and silence can shape a deeply meditative artistic experience.

Untitled 301, 302 & 303 (300 x 200 cm), Armen Agop

 

title: Silence Pavilion: Between the Tangible and the Intangible

commissioner: Egyptian Ministry of Culture – Accademia d’Egitto A Roma

curator: Armen Agop

exhibitor: Armen Agop | @armen.agop

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF EQUATORIAL GUINEA

 

Equatorial Guinea makes its debut at the Venice Art Biennale with The Forest / The Undergrowth, an exhibition curated by Joan Abelló and commissioned by Paulo Speller. Presented at Palazzo Donà dalle Rose, the project brings together artists including Fernando Nguema Madja and Modest Gené Roig alongside international collaborators. Through diverse perspectives, the pavilion explores forest cosmologies, ecological systems, and the connections between environmental knowledge and cultural identity.

 

title: The Forest / The Undergrowth

commissioner: Paulo Speller

curator: Joan Abelló

exhibitor: Fernando Nguema Madja, Modest Gené Roig and multiple participating artists

venue: Palazzo Donà dalle Rose, Cannaregio

 

 

PAVILION OF ESTONIA

 

Estonia’s pavilion features The House of Leaking Sky, a project by painter Merike Estna curated by Natalia Sielewicz. Conceived as an open studio, the installation allows visitors to witness a monumental painting gradually unfold over the course of the Biennale, blurring the boundaries between artwork, daily life, and performance. By merging artistic labour with everyday routines, Estna reflects on care, maintenance, and the shifting role of painting within shared social space.

Merike Estna, Nightfall, 2023-2024

 

title: The House of Leaking Sky

commissioner: Maria Arusoo

curator: Natalia Sielewicz

exhibitor: Merike Estna | @merikeestna

venue: Patronato Salesiano Leone XIII, Castello

 

 

PAVILION OF ETHIOPIA

 

Artist Tegene Kunbi presents a new body of work exploring silence as a social and political condition. Curated by Abebaw Ayalew, the exhibition brings together painting, textiles, and assemblage to examine how silence operates not as absence, but as a space shaped by power, tradition, and cultural expectation.

 

Drawing on Ethiopian proverbs and material histories, Kunbi’s works layer handwoven fabrics, sacred garments, and industrial textiles into complex compositions where different systems of meaning collide.

 

title: Shapes of Silence

commissioner: Ambassador Demitu Hambisa Bonsa

curator: Abebaw Ayalew

exhibitor: Tegene Kunbi | @tegenekunbi

venue: Palazzo Bollani, Castello

 

 

PAVILION OF FINLAND

 

Jenna Sutela’s Aeolian Suite, curated by Stefanie Hessler, transforms the Pavilion of Finland into a multisensory environment shaped by wind, sound, and atmospheric data. Drawing on meteorological information and instruments activated by air currents, the installation explores wind as both a natural force and a carrier of ecological and cultural signals.

Blending scientific inquiry with poetic listening, the project reflects on the unpredictability of weather systems and humanity’s relationship with an increasingly unstable climate.

Jenna Sutela, Aeolian Suite, 2026, work in progress. Pavilion of Finland at the 61st Venice Biennale. Image by Hertta Kiiski, courtesy of Frame Contemporary Art Finland

 

title: Aeolian Suite

commissioner: Juha Huuskonen, Frame Contemporary Art Finland

curator: Stefanie Hessler

exhibitor: Jenna Sutela | @jennasutela

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF FRANCE

 

Yto Barrada represents France at the 61st Venice Art Biennale with Comme Saturne, an exhibition curated by Myriam Ben Salah. Working across film, installation, photography, textiles, and publishing, Barrada builds layered narratives that intertwine micro-histories, ecological concerns, and alternative modernisms.

 

The Moroccan visual artist’s research-driven practice foregrounds collaboration and the circulation of knowledge, amplifying overlooked stories and reframing cultural histories through feminist and collective perspectives.

 

title: Comme Saturne

commissioner: Institut français

curator: Myriam Ben Salah

exhibitor: Yto Barrada | @ytobarrada

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF GERMANY

 

Germany’s pavilion brings together the practices of Henrike Naumann and Sung Tieu in a project curated by Kathleen Reinhardt. Through installations shaped by interiors, archives, sound, and sculptural elements, the artists examine systems of order and the political structures that shape everyday life. The presentation also stands as one of Naumann’s final major projects following her passing in early 2026, lending the pavilion an added layer of reflection on memory, history, and institutional power.

exhibition view, Henrike Naumann, WESTALGIE, © IKOB – Museum of Contemporary Art | image by Lola Pertsowsky

 

title: Ruin

commissioner: ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen

curator: Kathleen Reinhardt

exhibitor: Henrike Naumann, Sung Tieu | @sungtieu

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF GREAT BRITAIN

 

Painting, sound, and storytelling converge in Lubaina Himid’s presentation for the British Pavilion. Through a new series of large-scale, multi-paneled works, Himid constructs vivid, theatrical environments where questions of belonging, migration, and cultural memory unfold as open-ended narratives rather than fixed histories.

 

Developed in collaboration with Magda Stawarska, the exhibition extends into a layered soundscape that amplifies the emotional texture of these imagined scenes. Engaging the architecture of the pavilion as both welcoming and uneasy, Predicting History: Testing Translation reflects on the impossibility of fully translating experience, positioning identity as something continuously shaped through movement, encounter, and reinterpretation.

Lubaina Himid and Claudette Johnson, The Woman Question: 1550–2025, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, 21 November 2025 – 3 May 2026

 

title: Predicting History: Testing Translation

commissioner: British Council

curator: Ese Onojeruo

exhibitor: Lubaina Himid | @lubainapics

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF GREECE

 

Greece is represented by Andreas Angelidakis with Escape Room, a project curated by Giorgos Bekiarakis. Drawing on the allegory of Plato’s cave and the logic of contemporary escape games, the installation examines how truth, perception, and narrative are constructed within today’s image-driven culture. Blurring the boundaries between physical and virtual realities, Angelidakis invites visitors into a simulated environment that reflects on digital illusion, post-truth, and the human desire to escape systems of representation.

image via @angelidakis

 

title: Escape Room

commissioner: Fani Tsatsaia

curator: George Bekirakis | @g.bekirakis

exhibitor: Andreas Angelidakis | @angelidakis 

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF GRENADA

 

Curated by Daniele Radini Tedeschi, The Poetics of Correspondence positions Grenada’s pavilion as a space of cultural exchange shaped by the histories of the Caribbean archipelago. Featuring a group of artists and collaborators, the exhibition reflects on creolisation, diaspora, and the movement of ideas across oceans. Through layered installations and time-based works, the project engages with the relational and reflective tone suggested by the Biennale’s theme In Minor Keys.

 

title: The Poetics of Correspondence

commissioner: Susan Mains

curator: Daniele Radini Tedeschi

exhibitor: Edward Bowen, Arthur Daniel, Josine Dupont and others

venue: Spazio Berlendis, Cannaregio

 

 

PAVILION OF THE HOLY SEE

 

The Holy See pavilion presents The Ear is the Eye of the Soul, a group exhibition curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers. Set within the secluded Giardino Mistico, the project invites visitors into a contemplative environment shaped by listening, responding to Koyo Kouoh’s call to attune to quieter registers.

 

Inspired by the legacy of Hildegard of Bingen, the exhibition unfolds through newly commissioned sound works by artists and musicians including Dev Hynes, Brian Eno, Patti Smith, Jim Jarmusch, Terry Riley, Meredith Monk, and FKA Twigs, among others. Voice, music, and environmental rhythms merge within a site-specific system that translates the bioelectrical activity of the garden into an evolving composition.

 

A parallel presentation at the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice Complex extends the project into a living archive, featuring the final work of Alexander Kluge alongside research and monastic references. Together, the two sites frame the pavilion as a space of reflection, where sound becomes a medium for collective memory and spiritual inquiry.

Giardino Mistico dei Carmelitani Scalzi, 2025 | image by Ermanno Barucco; Courtesy Provincia veneta dell’Ordine dei Carmelitani Scalzi

 

title: The Ear is the Eye of the Soul

commissioner: Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça

curator: Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ben Vickers

exhibitor: Soundwalk Collective

venue: Santa Maria Ausiliatrice and Giardino Mistico dei Carmelitani Scalzi

 

 

PAVILION OF HUNGARY

 

Koronczi Endre’s Pneuma Cosmic occupies the Hungarian Pavilion unfolding as a speculative exploration of air as a vital, animating force. Framed as a fictional research project, the exhibition traces the idea of a cosmic breath moving through bodies, landscapes, and matter. Through ephemeral and conceptual works, the installation invites visitors to attune to invisible environmental systems, merging scientific inquiry with poetic reflection.

 

title: Pneuma Cosmic 

commissioner: Júlia Fabényi

curator: Luca Cserhalmi

exhibitor: Endre Koronczi | @koronczi

venue: Giardini

Pneuma Cosmic by Endre Koronczi

 

 

PAVILION OF ICELAND

 

Iceland’s pavilion, titled Pocket Universe, centers on the practice of Reykjavík-based artist Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir, whose work moves fluidly across poetry, sound, film, drawing, and performance. Through shifting combinations of voice, image, and gesture, the project creates an atmospheric environment where language unfolds as improvisation rather than fixed meaning. Blending humor, intuition, and experimental structures, Sigurðardóttir’s work explores the porous boundary between the conscious and subconscious in an increasingly technologized world.

 

title: Pocket Universe

commissioner: Cecilie C. Ragnheiðardóttir Gaihede

curator: Margrét Áskelsdóttir, Unnar Örn Auðarson

exhibitor: Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir | @astafanney_art

venue: Docks Cantieri Cucchini, San Pietro di Castello

Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir, Hero Form, 2026. Photo Sandijs Ruluks Courtesy of the artist ©Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir

 

 

PAVILION OF INDIA

 

India presents Geographies of Distance: remembering home, a group exhibition curated by Dr. Amin Jaffer. Bringing together works by Alwar Balasubramaniam, Sumakshi Singh, Ranjani Shettar, Asim Waqif, and Skarma Sonam Tashi, the pavilion reflects on the idea of home as something shaped by memory, migration, and transformation.

 

Working with materials such as soil, thread, clay, and recycled elements, the artists explore themes of belonging and distance within the context of India’s rapidly changing social and cultural landscape.

 

title: Geographies of Distance: remembering home | @indiainvenice

commissioner: National Gallery of Modern Art

curator: Amin Jaffer

exhibitor: Alwar Balasubramaniam, Sumakshi Singh, Ranjani Shettar, Asim Waqif, Skarma Sonam Tashi

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF INDONESIA

 

Indonesia returns to the Venice Art Biennale after a six-year hiatus with an exhibition curated by Aminudin TH Siregar. Bringing together archival materials such as books and lithographic prints alongside new works by emerging artists, the project reflects on the formation of Indonesia’s cultural identity through visual and material histories. The exhibition introduces diverse artistic languages and traditions, positioning print and archive as tools for revisiting and reactivating the country’s art historical narratives.

 

title: Printing the Unprinted

commissioner: Endah T.D. Retnoastuti

curator: Aminudin TH Siregar

exhibitor: Agus Suwage and participating artists

venue: Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, Cannaregio

 

 

PAVILION OF IRELAND

 

Ireland’s pavilion features Dreamshook, a new installation by artist Isabel Nolan. Bringing together tapestry, drawing, and sculpture, the project explores dream states, thresholds, and the shifting boundary between the immaterial and the real. Drawing on references from medieval and early Renaissance history, literature, and mythology, Nolan reflects on how systems of belief, power, and knowledge continue to shape human experience in times of uncertainty.

Isabel Nolan, Look at the Harlequins! exhibition | image via @kerlingallery

 

title: Dreamshook

commissioner: Culture Ireland

curator: Georgina Jackson and The Douglas Hyde Gallery

exhibitor: Isabel Nolan | @nolanisabel

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF ITALY

 

For the 2026 Biennale, Italy presents With you with everything, a spatial installation by Chiara Camoni that reimagines the pavilion as a site of gathering and co-creation. Curated by Cecilia Canziani, the project brings together sculptural figures, domestic architectures, and collaborative practices, translating the artist’s community-based methodology into a collective, inhabitable environment.

 

title: With You with Everything

commissioner: Angelo Piero Cappello

curator: Cecilia Canziani

exhibitor: Chiara Camoni

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF JAPAN

 

Japan’s pavilion features Grass Babies, Moon Babies, a project by artist Ei Arakawa-Nash. Marking the pavilion’s 70th anniversary, the exhibition explores ideas of circulation between the pavilion’s architecture and its surrounding garden, drawing on motifs of grass, the moon, and cycles of time. Through installations and performative elements, Arakawa-Nash reflects on themes of family, care, and collective participation while experimenting with new collaborative and community-driven approaches to exhibition making.

Ei Arakawa, Mega Please Draw Freely, 2021 installation/performance view Tate Modern, London, Photo: Brotherton-Lock courtesy of the artist

 

title: Grass Babies, Moon Babies

commissioner: The Japan Foundation

curator: Lisa Horikawa, Mizuki Takahashi

exhibitor: Ei Arakawa-Nash

venue: Giardini

 

PAVILION OF KAZAKHSTAN

 

The Kazakhstan Pavilion presents Qoñyr: the Archive of Silence, curated by Syrlybek Bekbota, bringing together a group of contemporary artists whose practices explore memory, sound, and the quiet traces of lived experience. Rooted in the concept of qoñyr, the exhibition unfolds as an invitation to attune to subtle vibrations, to what is felt rather than spoken.

 

Drawing from Kazakh cosmology, qoñyr signals a tonal, sensory condition linked to earth, breath, and silence. As a curatorial framework, it becomes a way of listening to histories that persist beneath noise, shaped by both personal memory and broader socio-cultural shifts.

 

Installed across six rooms of the Museo Storico Navale, the pavilion develops as a spatial and sonic journey. Visitors move through environments where sound, material, and landscape intertwine, from steppe-inspired installations and oral traditions to intimate objects carrying generational memory. Works by artists including Smail Bayaliyev, Anar Aubakir, and Ardak Mukanova trace how memory is held within bodies, materials, and everyday gestures.

Asel Kadyrkhanova, The Machine | image courtesy of the artist

 

title: Qoñyr: The archive of Silence | @kazakhstan_nationalpavilion_

commissioner: Aida Balayeva | @aida_balayeva

curator: Syrlybek Bekbota | @syrlybekbekbota

exhibitor: Ardak Mukanova, Asel Kadyrkhanova, ADYR-ASPAN, Anar Aubakir, Smail Bayaliyev, Nurbol Nurakhmet, Mansur Smagambetov, and Oralbek Kaboke

venue: Museo Storico Navale, Castello

 

 

PAVILION OF KOREA

 

Curated by Binna Choi, the Korean Pavilion brings together artists Goen Choi and Hyeree Ro to develop Liberation Space: Fortress/Nest, a project that rethinks the pavilion as a site of transition, exchange, and collective becoming. Drawing on Korea’s historical Liberation Space, the period between 1945 and 1948 following the end of Japanese colonial rule, the exhibition reflects on how moments of political uncertainty shape shared imaginaries and social relations.

 

Through sculptural interventions, performance, and collaborative programming, the pavilion unfolds as a living structure that foregrounds dialogue, care, and interdependence. Extending beyond its physical boundaries, Goen Choi’s Meridian introduces a network of copper pipes that reach into the neighboring Japanese Pavilion, marking a rare instance of spatial and conceptual collaboration between the two national representations.

 

Hyeree Ro’s Bearing, in turn, envelops the pavilion in a translucent, wax-coated membrane, within which a series of ‘stations’ host contributions from artists and writers across disciplines. Among them is Kang Han, whose work is presented within a dedicated Mourning Station, expanding the exhibition’s reflection on memory, loss, and world-making. Together, the project positions the pavilion as a porous and evolving environment, where histories of liberation remain unresolved and continuously negotiated.

 

 

title: Liberation Space: Fortress/Nest | @korean_pavilion

commissioner: Arts Council Korea

curator: Binna Choi

exhibitor: Goen Choi, Hyeree Ro

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF KOSOVO

 

The Kosovo pavilion features Hard Teeth, a project by Brilant Milazimi curated by José Esparza Chong Cuy. Through an immersive installation of elongated figures and suspended bodies, the work explores states of waiting, endurance, and emotional tension.

 

Reflecting on themes of displacement, uncertainty, and geopolitical ambiguity, the project resonates with Kosovo’s complex position on the international stage while addressing broader conditions of contemporary instability.

 

title: Hard Teeth | @kosovopavilion

commissioner: Hana Halilaj

curator: José Esparza Chong Cuy | @josesparza

exhibitor: Brilant Milazimi | @brilant.milazimi

venue: Chiesa di Santa Maria del Pianto

 

 

PAVILION OF LATVIA

 

Latvia presents Untamed Assembly: Backstage of Utopia, a collaborative project by MAREUNROL’S and Bruno Birmanis, curated by Inga Lāce and Adomas Narkevičius. Drawing on Birmanis’s Untamed Fashion Assembly archive from 1990s Riga, the pavilion revisits a moment of post-Soviet cultural experimentation to explore how collective identity and alternative futures take shape during periods of transition. Conceived as a backstage environment, the installation foregrounds processes usually kept out of view—preparation, improvisation, and collaboration. Garments, textile sculptures, and archival footage unfold as carriers of memory and possibility, reflecting on fashion as a performative and political medium. By reconnecting past utopian impulses with the present, the pavilion considers how new forms of togetherness can emerge from instability and change.

dress from The Post-Banalism Ball, designer Bruno Birmanis, 1989 | image by Uldis Pāže

 

title: Untamed Assembly: Backstage of Utopia | @untamedassembly

commissioner: Solvita Krese

curator: Inga Lāce, Adomas Narkevičius

exhibitor: MAREUNROL’S | @mareunrols, Bruno Birmanis | @brunobirmanis

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF LEBANON

 

The Lebanese pavilion presents Don’t Get Me Wrong, an immersive installation by artist Nabil Nahas curated by Dr. Nada Ghandour. Developed with scenography by EAST Architecture Studio, the project transforms the exhibition space into a layered visual environment that reflects Nahas’s long-standing exploration of form, pattern, and natural structures. Presented by the Lebanese Visual Art Association under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, the pavilion marks Lebanon’s continued engagement with the international contemporary art scene.

Inka Dinka Doo, 2013, by Nabil Nahas

 

title: Don’t Get Me Wrong | @lebanesepavilionvenice2026

commissioner: Nada Ghandour

curator: Nada Ghandour

exhibitor: Nabil Nahas | @nabilrnahas

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF LITHUANIA

 

Lithuania’s contribution to the Biennale centers on animism sings anarchy, a new film installation by Eglė Budvytytė. Presented across multiple projections, the work intertwines performance, song, and mythological references to investigate animist cosmologies and communal rituals. Moving between historical research and poetic gesture, the installation reflects on how bodies, landscapes, and memory remain entangled across time.

still from Warmblooded and Earthbound by Eglė Budvytytė, via @egle_budvytyte

 

title: animism sings anarchy

commissioner: Lolita Jablonskienė

curator: Louise O’Kelly

exhibitor: Eglė Budvytytė | @egle_budvytyte 

venue: Fucina del Futuro, Castello

 

 

PAVILION OF LUXEMBOURG

 

Luxembourg’s pavilion features La Merde, an immersive audiovisual installation by artist Aline Bouvy. Through a cinematic narrative centered on an anthropomorphic excrement figure, the work examines shame, social control, and the boundaries between visibility and exclusion.

 

Combining film, sound, and sculptural elements, the installation transforms the pavilion into a provocative environment that questions cultural norms surrounding the body, cleanliness, and abjection.

Aline Bouvy, Hot Flashes (installation view), Casino Luxembourg, 2025

 

title: La Merde

commissioner: Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg | @kulturlx

curator: Stilbé Schroeder

exhibitor: Aline Bouvy | @alinebouvy

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF MALTA

 

Malta’s pavilion, titled No Need to Sparkle; Experiments in Love and Revolution, is curated by Margherita Pulè and brings together artists Adrian M.M. Abela, Charlie Cauchi, and Raphael Vella. Through multimedia and screen-based installations, the project explores how myths, narratives, and contemporary media shape perceptions of truth and belief. Drawing on the idea of ‘wise doubt,’ the exhibition invites visitors into layered fictional environments where certainty dissolves and multiple perspectives coexist.

Charlie Cauchi | image by Julian Vassallo

 

title: No Need To Sparkle; Experiments in Love and Revolution

commissioner: Arts Council Malta

curator: Margerita Pulè

exhibitor: Adrian MM Abela, Charlie Cauchi, Raphael Vella

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF MEXICO

 

Mexico’s pavilion presents Actos invisibles para sostener el universo by the collective RojoNegro, formed by María Sosa and Noé Martínez, and curated by Jessica Berlanga Taylor. Through installation, performance, sound, and organic materials, the project engages with ancestral memory, epistemic justice, and relational ecology. Drawing on Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and rural cosmologies, the work reflects on decolonial practices and the enduring impact of colonial histories on bodies, territories, and systems of knowledge.

image via @rojonegro.ome

 

title: Actos invisibles para sostener el universo

commissioner: Andrés Valtierra

curator: Jessica Berlanga Taylor

exhibitor: Rojo Negro (María Sosa, Noé Martínez) | @rojonegro.ome

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF MOROCCO

 

Asǝṭṭa, a project by artist Amina Agueznay curated by Meriem Berrada, is set to be on view at Morocco’s pavilion. Developed through collaborations with artisans across Morocco, the installation centers on weaving and craft practices as living archives of memory, gesture, and cultural knowledge. Through large-scale woven structures and handcrafted elements, the pavilion transforms the exhibition space into a threshold that reflects on collective heritage and the relationship between material practice and lived territory.

Skin by Amina Agueznay

 

title: Asǝṭṭa

commissioner: Mohammed Benyaacoub

curator: Meriem Berrada

exhibitor: Amina Agueznay | @aminaagueznay

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF MOLDOVA

 

Marking its first official participation at the Venice Art Biennale, the Republic of Moldova presents On the Thousand and Second Night by artist Pavel Brăila, curated by Adelina Luft. The installation draws on the tradition of Moldovan carpet weaving alongside the mythical flying carpet from One Thousand and One Nights, weaving together domestic memory and storytelling. Through these layered references, the project reflects on continuity, imagination, and the fragile possibilities of the future in a shifting geopolitical landscape.

Pavel Brăila: Echoes of Harmony and Silent Cries | image by Alexandru Paul

 

title: On the Thousand and Second Night | @moldovapavilion

commissioner: Oleg Nica

curator: Adelina Luft

exhibitor: Pavel Brăila | @pashuzza

venue: Spazio Santa Veneranda, Cannaregio

 

 

PAVILION OF MONGOLIA

 

Mongolia’s pavilion, Entanglements: Connectivities Across Borders, brings together works by Gerelkhuu Ganbold, Dorjderem Davaa, Nomin Bold, and Tuguldur Yondonjamts, curated by Uranchimeg Tsultem and Thomas Eller.

 

Through painting, installation, and mixed media practices, the exhibition explores Mongolia as a site shaped by historical trade routes, migration, and cultural exchange across Eurasia. The project reflects on interconnected systems of movement, coexistence, and resilience in a world marked by shifting borders and ecological change

 

title: Entanglements: Connectivities Across Borders | @mongoliapavilion2026venezia

commissioner: Baigali Ochkhuu

curator: Uranchimeg Tsultem, Thomas Eller

exhibitor: Nomin Bold, Gerelkhuu Ganbold, Tuguldur Yondonjamts, Dorjderem Davaa

venue: Squero Castello

 

 

PAVILION OF MONTENEGRO

 

Montenegro’s pavilion presents Out of Blue, I Swept Away, a multimedia installation by artist Siniša Radulović curated by Dr. Svetlana Racanović. Combining sculptural structures, large-scale video projections, and an immersive soundscape, the work reflects on the relationship between private space and collective experience. Beginning from a reconstruction of the artist’s personal environment, the installation gradually expands into a meditation on coexistence, vulnerability, and the possibility of new beginnings.

Out of the Blue, I’m Swept Away by Siniša Radulović

 

title: Out of Blue, I Swept Away

commissioner: Vladislav Šćepanović

curator: Svetlana Racanović

exhibitor: Siniša Radulović | @sinisa_radulovic_

venue: Artenova, Castello

 

 

PAVILION OF NAURU

 

The Republic of Nauru makes its debut at the Venice Art Biennale with a group exhibition examining ecological precarity, extractive histories, and the realities of environmental loss. Curated by Khaled Ramadan with Camilla Boemio and Stefano Cagol, the project positions the Pacific microstate as both a warning and a point of reflection on global systems that have reshaped land, culture, and sovereignty. Bringing together ten international artists working across installation, video, sound, research, and AI, the exhibition explores disappearance not only as physical land loss but also as the erosion of cultural memory and ecological knowledge.

Kauw Tsitsi, Sand Glass Ball Game, 2025

 

title: AIM Inundated: Imagining Life After Land 

commissioner: Isabella Dageago

curator: Khaled Ramadan

exhibitor: Kauw Tsitsi and participating artists

venue: Spazio Castello

 

 

PAVILION OF THE NETHERLANDS

 

Artist Dries Verhoeven and curator Rieke Vos transform the Dutch Pavilion into a performance-driven architectural intervention. For the first time, performance becomes central to the Netherlands’ presentation in Venice, turning the Rietveld Pavilion itself into both stage and subject. Through live actions and spatial interventions, the project examines the human impulse toward protection and boundary-making in times of uncertainty, probing the tension between Western ideals of openness and the increasingly defensive attitudes shaping contemporary society.

The Fortress Plaque – Highres landscape | image by Willem Popelier

 

title: The Fortress

commissioner: Eelco van der Lingen | @evdlingen

curator: Rieke Vos | @riekevos

exhibitor: Dries Verhoeven | @studiodriesverhoeven

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF NEW ZEALAND

 

Photographer Fiona Pardington represents Aotearoa New Zealand with a new series of monumental photographic portraits centered on birds from museum collections across Aotearoa and Australia. Curated by Felicity Milburn and Chloe Cull, the project reflects on the entangled histories of colonial collecting, scientific classification, and ecological loss.

 

Featuring species endemic to Aotearoa, including extinct and critically endangered manu such as the huia and whēkau, the images acknowledge the cultural and spiritual significance of birds within te ao Māori while questioning the museum systems that removed them from their natural environments.

Portrait of a Female Huia, South Canterbury Museum 2024 by Fiona Pardington

 

title: Taharaki Skyside

commissioner: Kent Gardner

curator: Felicity Milburn, Chloe Cull

exhibitor: Fiona Pardington | @fionapardington

venue: Santa Maria della Pietà, Castello

 

 

PAVILION OF NORTH MACEDONIA

 

Artist Velimir Zhernovski represents North Macedonia with an installation that reinterprets the iconography of Michelangelo’s Pietà. Moving beyond the historical sculpture, the project revisits the image through a contemporary lens, reflecting on violence, vulnerability, and the urgency of confronting collective trauma. Working across installation, drawing, and moving image, Zhernovski reshapes the familiar composition into a broader meditation on the politics of memory and the human condition.

 

title: Pietà in the Emergency Blankets

commissioner: Avni Qahili

curator: Tihomir Topuzovski, Amanda Boetzkes

exhibitor: Velimir Zernovski | @zernovskivelimir

venue: Ex Cappella Buon Pastore, Castello

 

 

PAVILION OF THE NORDIC COUNTRIES

 

Curated by Anna Mustonen, the Nordic Countries Pavilion brings together Klara Kristalova, Benjamin Orlow, and Tori Wrånes in a collaborative exhibition that transforms Sverre Fehn’s pavilion into a mythical sculptural landscape. Drawing on Nordic folklore and epic narratives such as the Kalevala, the project weaves together sculpture, sound, performance, and spatial installation to explore cycles of decay, renewal, and transformation. Blending plant, animal, and human forms, the exhibition reflects on coexistence, environmental entanglement, and the fragile boundaries between bodies, species, and worlds.

 

title: How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Pin? | @nordiccountriespavilion

commissioner: Kiira Miesmaa, Gitte Ørskou, Ruben Steinum

curator: Anna Mustonen

exhibitor: Benjamin Orlow | @benjaminorlow, Klara Kristalova | @hundskogen, Tori Wrånes | @closest_relatives 

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF PAKISTAN

 

Pakistan returns to the Venice Art Biennale for its second national participation with a new body of work by Faiza Butt. Curated by Beatriz Cifuentes Feliciano and commissioned by the Ministry of National Heritage and Culture of Pakistan, the exhibition reflects on the historic region of Punjab, divided between India and Pakistan after the 1947 Partition. Through textile-based techniques and embroidery, Butt foregrounds practices traditionally associated with women’s labor, repositioning them as contemporary artistic languages that carry cultural memory and resilience across generations.

Painting in progress by Faiza Butt | via @faizaaugust7

 

title: Punj•AB – A Sublime Terrain | @pakistanpavilion2026

commissioner: Yaqoob Khan Bangash

curator: Beatriz Cifuentes Feliciano | @thebeatrizcifuentes

exhibitor: Faiza Butt | @faizaaugust7

venue: Ex Farmacia Solveni, Dorsoduro

 

 

PAVILION OF PERU

 

Peru’s pavilion at the 61st Venice Art Biennale is led by Shipibo-Konibo artist Sara Flores, marking the country’s first national presentation centered on an Indigenous artist. Curated by Issela Ccoyllo and Matteo Norzi and coordinated by the Patronato Cultural del Perú (PACUPE), the exhibition builds on Flores’ long engagement with Kené, the ancestral visual language of the Shipibo-Konibo people. Using vegetal pigments derived from the Amazon forest, her works translate matrilineal knowledge systems into intricate geometric compositions that connect body, territory, and cosmology.

Sara Flores, 2026 © Musuk Nolte, | courtesy The Shipibo-Conibo Center, NY

 

title: Sara Flores. From Other Worlds

commissioner: Armando Andrade

curator: Issela Ccoyllo, Matteo Norzi

exhibitor: Sara Flores

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF THE PHILIPPINES

 

Artist Jon Cuyson represents the Philippines with an exhibition curated by Mara Gladstone that brings together paintings, videos, and sculptural works reflecting on maritime labor and the global circulation of people and goods. Drawing on three decades of artistic practice, Cuyson centers the lives of Filipino seafarers and the communities connected to them. Motifs such as ships, mollusks, and ocean routes become metaphors for migration, kinship, and belonging, framing the sea as a living archive shaped by memory, labor, and movement.

Jon Cuyson, The W/Hole Horizon (detail), 2026. Mixed media on canvas. Photo: Bien Alvarez

 

title: Sea of Love / Dagat ng Pag-ibig

commissioner: National Commission for Culture and the Arts

curator: Mara Gladstone

exhibitor: Jon Cuyson

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF POLAND

 

Sound, gesture, and alternative forms of language converge in Poland’s pavilion, where Bogna Burska and Daniel Kotowski explore communication beyond the limits of speech. Liquid Tongues, curated by Ewa Chomicka and Jolanta Woszczenko, unfolds as an immersive audio-video installation performed by a mixed Deaf and hearing choir. Drawing from whale songs and echolocation, the project reimagines language as a fluid, embodied experience shaped by sound, movement, and vibration. Spoken word, International Sign, and underwater acoustics intersect, dissolving boundaries between human and more-than-human communication. Grounded in the concept of Deaf Gain, the pavilion reframes deafness as a cultural and perceptual expansion, proposing new ways of listening, sensing, and relating.

title: Liquid Tongues | @polishpavilionvenice

commissioner: Agnieszka Pindera

curator: Ewa Chomicka, Jolanta Woszczenko

exhibitor: Bogna Burska, Daniel Kotowski

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF PORTUGAL

 

Artist Alexandre Estrela presents an immersive audiovisual installation that turns the Portuguese Pavilion into a responsive, cybernetic system. Curated by Ana Baliza and Ricardo Nicolau, the project converts real-time seismic data from across the globe into shifting images and sounds within the exhibition space. Drawing connections between geological tremors, mythological narratives such as Japan’s Namazu catfish, and the philosophical legacy of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, RedSkyFalls reflects on how natural instability has shaped human belief systems. Rather than dramatizing catastrophe, the work amplifies subtle vibrations and nearly imperceptible signals, transforming the pavilion into a resonant environment attuned to distant tectonic movements.

Alexandre Estrela, Flat Bells, 2023 | image by Oresti Tsonopoulos

 

title: RedSkyFalls

commissioner: Américo Rodrigues

curator: Ana Baliza, Ricardo Nicolau

exhibitor: Alexandre Estrela

venue: Fondaco Marcello

 

 

PAVILION OF QATAR

 

The National Pavilion of Qatar presents untitled 2026 (a gathering of remarkable people), a collaborative and process-driven project led by Rirkrit Tiravanija. Conceived as an open, tent-like structure, the pavilion aims to become a space of encounter, bringing together artists, musicians, and culinary practices from across the Arab world. Featuring contributions by Sophia Al-Maria, Tarek Atoui, Alia Farid, and chef Fadi Kattan, the project unfolds through film, sound, sculpture, and food.

 

The pavilion. presents an evolving program of performances and shared experiences, foregrounding hospitality, exchange, and collective presence. Set on the future site of the Qatar Pavilion in the Giardini, the project reflects Tiravanija’s long-standing interest in social practice, where art becomes a framework for gathering. 

 

title: untitled 2026 (a gathering of remarkable people)

commissioner: Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani

curator: Tom Eccles, Ruba Katrib

exhibitor: Rirkrit Tiravanija, Sophia Al Maria, Tarek Atoui, Alia Farid, Fadi Kattan

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF ROMANIA

 

Anca Benera and Arnold Estefán transform the Romanian Pavilion into a layered audiovisual environment that probes the surface and depths of the Black Sea. Curated by Corina Oprea and Diana Marincu, the project treats the sea as a fragile ecosystem shaped by overlapping histories and geopolitical tensions through video, sculpture, and sound.

 

Sound takes a central role, guiding visitors through an immersive, near-submerged spatial experience that foregrounds unseen forces and non-human perspectives.

image via @blackseas.ro

 

title: Black Seas – Scores for the Sonic Eye | @blackseas.ro

commissioner: Ioana Ciocan

curator: Corina Oprea | @realcorinaoprea, Diana Marincu | @dianamarincu

exhibitor: Anca Benera, Arnold Estefán | @beneraestefan

venue: Giardini and Palazzo Correr

 

 

PAVILION OF SAN MARINO

 

Northern Irish artist Mark Francis represents the Republic of San Marino with a multisensory project that translates sound into visual form. Curated by Luca Tommasi, the exhibition brings together moving image and large-scale abstract painting to explore frequency, vibration, and emotional resonance. Across two rooms, the installation unfolds as an immersive environment where sound is reinterpreted through color, rhythm, and spatial perception, inviting visitors into a mode of ‘visual listening.’

 

title: Sea of Sound

commissioner: Valentina Garavini

curator: Luca Tommasi

exhibitor: Mark Francis

venue: Tana Art Space, Castello

 

 

PAVILION OF SAUDI ARABIA

 

Curated by Antonia Carver, Saudi Arabia’s pavilion centers on a new body of work by Dana Awartani that explores the intersection of heritage and contemporary practice. Engaging traditional craft techniques and material histories, Awartani reactivates artisanal knowledge systems through collaborative processes, positioning them within a present-day artistic framework. The project reflects on cycles of preservation, loss, and renewal across cultural landscapes.

Dana Awartani, Come, let me heal your wounds… | image via @danaawartanistudio

 

title: May your tears never dry, you who weep over stones

commissioner: Visual Arts Commission, Saudi Ministry of Culture

curator: Antonia Carver | @antoniamcarver

exhibitor: Dana Awartani | @danaawartanistudio

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF SENEGAL

 

Senegal returns with its second national pavilion, presenting a new project by artist Caroline Gueye, curated by Massamba Mbaye. Set against the broader theme of In Minor Keys, the exhibition reflects on gold as both material and metaphor, tracing its role in shaping histories, economies, and ecological realities.

 

Drawing on her background in astrophysics, Gueye approaches questions of matter, extraction, and value through spatial and perceptual installations that connect earthly resources with cosmic origins, balancing narratives of exploitation with gestures of reflection and renewal.

Caroline Gueye, Spectroscopie | via @studiocarolinegueye

 

title: WURUS – What the Earth provides us with

commissioner: Oumar Sall

curator: Massamba Mbaye

exhibitor: Caroline Gueye | @studiocarolinegueye

venue: Palazzo Navagero

 

 

PAVILION OF Singapore

 

The Singapore Pavilion presents A Pause, a contemplative installation by Amanda Heng Liang Ngim, developed in collaboration with curator Selene Yap. Expanding Heng’s long-standing practice, the project turns to the body, rest, and the quiet rhythms of everyday life as both subject and method. Transforming the pavilion into a space of stillness, the exhibition centres on simple, shared actions such as sitting, waiting, and observing. Drawing from decades of performance, photography, and participatory work, Heng frames the body as a site of negotiation shaped by social, cultural, and spatial conditions.

Amanda Heng Liang Ngim, ‘A Pause’ (2025-26) | image courtesy of the artist

 

title: A Pause

commissioner: Elaine Ng, National Arts Council

curator: Selene Yap

exhibitors: Amanda Heng Liang Ngim 

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF SLOVENIA

 

Slovenia presents Soundtrack for an Invisible House by Nonument Group, curated by Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, that transforms a lost architectural trace into a space of sound and reflection. Working across research, installation, and sonic elements, the exhibition revisits a forgotten site to examine how histories are constructed, erased, and reactivated. Positioned between past and present, the project reflects on the intersections of architecture, memory, and power, opening questions around religion, conflict, and the persistence of invisible structures.

superposition of an archival photograph documenting the construction of a mosque in Log pod Mangartom (1917) and a digital terrain model derived from airborne LiDAR (ALS) data. Archival photograph courtesy of Uroš Košir.

 

title: Soundtrack for an Invisible House 

commissioner: Martina Vovk

curator: Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez

exhibitor: Nonument Group (Neja Tomšič, Martin Bricelj Baraga, Nika Grabar, Miloš Kosec) | @nonument

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF SOMALIA

 

Marking its debut, Somalia’s pavilion brings together Ayan Farah, Asmaa Jama, and Warsan Shire in an exhibition rooted in poetic structure and oral tradition. Curated by Mohamed Mire and Fabio Scrivanti, the project takes its title from a triadic Somali form, translating its rhythm into a spatial and sensory experience. Across installation, moving image, and text, the show explores how memory is carried through material, voice, and gesture, positioning belonging as something felt rather than fixed.

 

title: Saddexleey | @somaliapavilion

commissioner: Abdirahman Yusuf Mohamud

curator: Mohamed Mire, Fabio Scrivanti

exhibitor: Ayan Farah, Asmaa Jama, Warsan Shire

venue: Palazzo Caboto, Castello

 

 

PAVILION OF SPAIN

 

At the Spanish Pavilion, Oriol Vilanova stages an installation that draws from his extensive collection of vernacular postcards, transforming the space into an archive of overlooked images. Curated by Carles Guerra, Los Restos explores repetition and accumulation as methods of constructing memory, challenging conventional narratives of value and authorship in a reflection on how images persist, circulate, and are reinterpreted over time.

Reproductions, Oriol Vilanova 2022 | © Photo: Pol Masip

 

title: Los Restos

commissioner: AECID and Acción Cultural Española

curator: Carles Guerra

exhibitor: Oriol Vilanova | @oriolvilanova

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF SWITZERLAND

 

Swiss Pavilion, titled The Unfinished Business of Living Together, revisits a 1978 episode of the television program Telearena to explore the archive as a shifting and contested space. Developed by a collective including Gianmaria Andreetta, Luca Beeler, Nina Wakeford, Miriam Laura Leonardi, Lithic Alliance, and Yul Tomatala, the project reflects on how coexistence, tolerance, and social difference are negotiated over time. Through artistic research and archival material, the exhibition questions how public discourse is shaped and remembered, foregrounding the instability of collective memory.

 

 

title: The Unfinished Business of Living Together

commissioner: Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia | @prohelvetia

curator: Gianmaria Andreetta, Luca Beeler, Nina Wakeford

exhibitor: Miriam Laura Leonardi, Lithic Alliance, Yul Tomatala, Nina Wakeford

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF SYRIA

 

Sara Shamma represents Syria with The Tower Tomb of Palmyra, a project that draws on the funerary architecture of ancient Palmyra. Curated by Yuko Hasegawa and commissioned by the Syrian Ministry of Culture, the installation reinterprets the tower tomb as both spatial form and symbolic structure. Engaging themes of memory, loss, and continuity, the work reflects on layered histories while opening a space for contemporary resonance and reconstruction.

 

title: The Tower Tomb of Palmyra

commissioner: Waseem Abd Alhameed

curator: Yuko Hasegawa

exhibitor: Sara Shamma | @sara.shamma.artist

venue: IUAV Cotonificio, Dorsoduro

 

 

PAVILION OF TIMOR-LESTE

 

Timor-Leste returns to the Venice Art Biennale with Across Words, a project exploring language as a generative force within the country’s layered systems of communication. Featuring works by Veronica Pereira Maia, Etson Caminha, and Juventino Madeira, the exhibition reflects on how visual, oral, and spoken forms of expression shape cultural identity. Presented at the Arsenale, the pavilion highlights the multiplicity of dialects and traditions that together form a shared sense of unity across Timor-Leste’s linguistic landscape.

 

title: Across Words | @timor_leste_pavilion2026

commissioner: Jorge Soares Cristóvão

curator: Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani

exhibitor: Veronica Pereira Maia, Etson Caminha, Juventino Madeira

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF TÜRKİYE

 

Poetry, humor, and political awareness intersect in Nilbar Güreş’s exhibition for the Türkiye Pavilion at the 61st Venice Art Biennale. Working across photography, textiles, performance, sculpture, and film, Güreş draws on everyday gestures and cultural symbols to reveal social hierarchies, gendered expectations, and latent power structures. Curated by Başak Doğa Temür, thep resentation unfolds as a layered environment that brings marginalised voices into focus while remaining grounded in Türkiye’s complex social realities.

Nilbar Gures MAYZU: A Tree with Coconuts and Bananas, 2022 Mixed media 400 × 640 x 200 cm Photo: Kayhan Kaygusuz

 

title: A Kiss on the Eyes | @iksv_istanbul

commissioner: Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts

curator: Başak Doğa Temür

exhibitor: Nilbar Güreş

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF UKRAINE

 

Material becomes a vessel for memory in Zhanna Kadyrova’s presentation for the Ukraine Pavilion. Titled Security Guarantees, the project brings together sculptural and site-specific works that transform everyday materials into carriers of political, social, and emotional weight. Working with stone, concrete, ceramics, and found elements, Kadyrova reflects on conflict, displacement, and survival, tracing the entanglement of public space and collective trauma.

still from the film ‘IDP’ (dir. Zhanna Kadyrova)

 

title: Security Guarantees | @ukrainianpavilioninvenice

commissioner: Tetyana Berezhna

curator: Ksenia Malykh, Leonid Marushchak

exhibitor: Zhanna Kadyrova

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

 

For the 2026 edition, the UAE Pavilion is entrusted to curator Bana Kattan, whose work bridges institutional, regional, and international contexts. Drawing on her engagement with artists across generations and disciplines, Kattan is set to develop a project that reflects the complexity of the UAE’s cultural scene while contributing to ongoing debates in contemporary art.

 

title: Washwasha | @nationalpavilionuae

commissioner: Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation

curator: Bana Kattan

venue: Arsenale, Sale d’Armi

 

 

PAVILION OF URUGUAY

 

Margaret Whyte’s Antifragil approaches textile, sculpture, and spatial practice as interconnected political systems, where fragility is reframed as a condition of strength. Drawing on Nassim Taleb’s notion of antifragility, the installation treats instability and exposure as generative forces. Through soft structures, hybrid materials, and layered references, Whyte constructs environments that dissolve boundaries between nature, technology, labor, and care.

title: ANTIFRAGIL

commissioner: Martín Craciun

curator: Patricia Bentancur

exhibitor: Margaret Whyte | @margaret.whyte.9809

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

 

Alma Allen’s Call Me the Breeze unfolds as a meditation on material and transformation within the US Pavilion. Bringing together new site-specific works, including a large-scale outdoor sculpture, the project reflects the artist’s alchemical approach to form, where raw matter is shaped through process and intuition. Curated by Jeffrey Uslip, the exhibition navigates between weight and lightness, grounding sculpture in both physical presence and emotional resonance.

Alma Allen, Not Yet Titled, 2014. Yule marble and cedar pedestal; 81 x 63 x 14 in. (205.7 x 160 x 35.6cm), pedestal: 10 x 34 3/4x 12 in. (25.4 x 88.3 x 30.5 cm). Courtesy of the artist. All rights reserved.

 

title: Call Me the Breeze 

commissioner: Jenni Parido

curator: Jeffrey Uslip

exhibitor: Alma Allen | @almaallen

venue: Giardini

 

 

PAVILION OF UZBEKISTAN

 

Uzbekistan’s Pavilion, The Aural Sea, turns to mythmaking and storytelling as tools for engaging the ecological transformation of the Aral Sea. Developed by a collective of emerging curators from the Bukhara Biennial Curatorial School, the project approaches the region not as a site of loss alone, but as a space of knowledge, memory, and imagination. Bringing together artists working across installation, textile, and scientific inquiry, the exhibition reframes environmental crisis through listening, proposing narrative and fiction as forms of agency in imagining alternative futures.

Beyond the Horizon (2024) at Museo della Permanente | exhibition photos by DSL Studio, unless stated otherwise

 

title: The Aural Sea | @uzbekistan_national_pavilion

commissioner: Gayane Umerova

curator: Sophie Mayuko Arni, Aziza Izamova, Kamila Mukhitdinova, Nico Sun, Thái Hà

exhibitor: Jahongir Bobokulov and participating artists

venue: Arsenale

 

 

PAVILION OF VIETNAM

 

With Art in the Global Flow, Vietnam’s pavilion examines contemporary artistic production within the context of global circulation and cultural exchange. Curated by Do Tuong Linh, the exhibition gathers works by artists including Nguyen Thanh Chuong, Doan Thi Thu Huong, and Bui Huu Hung, highlighting diverse perspectives shaped by an evolving global condition.

 

title: Viet Nam: Art in the Global Flow

commissioner: Ma The Anh

curator: Do Tuong Linh

exhibitor: Nguyen Thanh Chuong, Doan Thi Thu Huong, and Bui Huu Hung

venue: Ca’ Faccanon, San Marco

 

 

PAVILION OF ZIMBABWE

 

Zimbabwe’s pavilion, Second Nature | Manyonga, explores neuroplasticity as both metaphor and method, tracing how identities, narratives, and societies are continuously reshaped. Curated by Fadzai Veronica Muchemwa and commissioned by Raphael Chikukwa, the exhibition brings together artists whose practices engage transformation as an active process, where resilience becomes a force for reinvention rather than mere survival.

 

title: Second Nature | Manyonga 

commissioner: Raphael Chikukwa

curator: Fadzai Muchemwa

exhibitor: Gideon Gomo, Eva Raath, Felix Shumba, Franklyn Dzingai, Pardon Mapondera

venue: Santa Maria della Pietà, Castello

 

 

BVLGARI PAVILION

 

Material, time, and transformation unfold in the inaugural Bvlgari Pavilion, where Lotus L. Kang presents a new site-responsive installation for the Giardini. Working across sculpture, photography, and spatial environments, Kang constructs layered compositions that merge organic and industrial languages, exploring themes of memory, inheritance, and impermanence.

 

Curated by Matthew Hyland, the project extends Kang’s ongoing investigation into time as nonlinear and continuously shifting. Using unstable, evolving materials, the installation approaches form as something in flux, shaped by processes of accumulation, decay, and transformation. Positioned as a key component of Bvlgari’s long-term partnership with La Biennale di Venezia, the pavilion frames Kang’s practice as an exploration of ‘becoming,’ where bodies, environments, and histories remain in constant negotiation.

commissioner: Bvlgari | @bvlgari

curator: Matthew Hyland

exhibitor: Lotus L. Kang | @lotuslkang

venue: Giardini

 

 

collateral events

 

The 61st Venice Art Biennale is accompanied by a series of official collateral events that extend the exhibition’s conversations beyond the Giardini and the Arsenale. Organised by international institutions, foundations, and cultural organisations, these 31 exhibitions unfold across historic palazzos, churches, museums, and foundations throughout Venice.

 

Together, they introduce additional artistic perspectives that run parallel to the central exhibition, often presenting ambitious installations, research projects, and thematic shows that respond to the contemporary cultural landscape. Spanning venues across the lagoon city, this year’s collateral events bring together artists, curators, and institutions from around the world, transforming Venice into a vast network of exhibitions that complement the Biennale’s main programme. Discover the full lineup of official collateral events below.

 

 

AS ABOVE, SO BELOW

 

Organized by One Ocean Foundation, As Above, So Below brings together art, science, and ecology through an immersive, transdisciplinary framework. Curated by Elizabeth Zhivkova and Farah Piriye Coene, the exhibition transforms a former church on Giudecca into a sensorial environment where sound, light, and data-driven installations converge. Centered on ocean systems as living archives, the project explores planetary interdependence, positioning the sea as a critical lens through which to read environmental change and ecological imbalance.

image via @asabovesobelow.space

 

what: As Above, So Below | @asabovesobelow.space

where: Fabbrica H3, Ex Chiesa dei Santi Cosma e Damiano, Giudecca 624, Venice

when: May 9th – June 8th, 2026

 

 

BAILE, BOTELLA Y BARAJA

 

Baile, Botella y Baraja – José Ruiz entre la Botella y el lienzo y su Narración Naïf de Puerto Rico brings Puerto Rican painter José Ruiz to Venice. Organized by Consolato REM Brega and curated by REM Escobar, the exhibition foregrounds Ruiz’s distinctive naïve visual language, where everyday life, folklore, and social rituals unfold through vibrant compositions and symbolic imagery.

 

Positioned as a continuation of efforts to expand Puerto Rico’s presence on the international art scene, the project focuses entirely on Ruiz’s practice, presenting a body of work that moves between intimacy and collective identity. Through scenes shaped by dance, celebration, and lived experience, the exhibition constructs a narrative of Puerto Rican culture that is both personal and expansive, situating local storytelling within a global exhibition context.

Optica y Jugetes | image via Consolatorem

 

what: Josè Ruìz entre la Botella y el Lienzo y su Narración Naïf de Puerto Rico

where: Magma Gallery, Castello 1735, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

CATALONIA IN VENICE: PAPER TEARS

 

Paper Tears is a multi-sensory installation combining light, sound, choreography, and moving image, structured around an archival investigation into historic paper watermarks. Drawing from a collection preserved at the Museu Molí Paperer of Capellades, the project brings 15th-century marks into the present, revealing them as fragile traces of a period shaped by transition, violence, and the emergence of early colonial systems. Positioned between visibility and concealment, these watermarks become carriers of memory, linking past infrastructures of production to contemporary conditions.

 

The installation activates this material through performance and repetition, as figures dressed as jesters reinterpret the archival forms through gesture and movement, oscillating between humor and exhaustion. A film component, shot at natural water sources connected to centuries-old paper production, extends the work into a spatial and environmental register, tracing hidden flows and circulations.

image via @cataloniainvenice

 

what: Paper Tears | @cataloniainvenice by Claudia Pagès Rabal

where: Docks Cantieri Cucchini, Castello 40/A, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

CYMRU YN FENIS / WALES IN VENICE Sownd by Manon Awst and Dylan Huw

 

Language, landscape, and material intertwine in Wales’ presentation, where Manon Awst and Dylan Huw develop a collaborative, site-responsive environment shaped by sound, text, and sculptural form. Sownd, curated by Steffan Jones-Hughes, unfolds as a continuous installation in which organic materials, found objects, and architectural interventions respond directly to the historic setting of La Pietà.

 

Everything within the exhibition operates as sculpture, including language itself. Guided by a poetic, associative logic, the work assembles fragments drawn from both Venice and Wales, forming a living environment where meaning emerges through accumulation and relation. Central to the project is the Welsh word ‘sownd,’ which suggests both being stuck and being fundamentally grounded, framing a tension between vulnerability and resilience.

 

Drawing on research into Welsh peatlands, dense, unstable terrains that preserve layers of ecological and cultural memory, the installation explores how minoritised languages persist within shifting environments. Moving between geographies and contexts, Sownd positions language as a material condition, shaped by landscape, history, and collective experience.

image via @walesinvenice

 

 

what: Cymru yn Fenis / Wales in Venice: Sownd by Manon Awst and Dylan Huw | @walesinvenice

where: Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà, Calle della Pietà, Castello 3703, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

FERMATA: HONG KONG IN VENICE

 

A suspended moment unfolds in Hong Kong’s presentation, where Kingsley Ng and Angel Hui tune into the quiet, often overlooked rhythms of everyday life. Borrowing its title from the musical term fermata, the exhibition lingers on duration and pause, creating a space where time stretches and perception becomes more attentive.

 

Developed as a series of site-specific installations, the project composes an environment of light, sound, and movement that responds both to Venice and to the sensory memory of Hong Kong. Rather than presenting fixed narratives, the works unfold through subtle shifts and encounters. Ng transforms ordinary urban gestures into moments of reflection, reframing routine as something intimate and affective, while Hui directs attention toward marginal objects and presences, revealing the fragile, underlying structures that sustain daily experience.

Angel Hui, I Would Like to Open a Window for You (Rendering), 2026

 

what: Fermata: Hong Kong in Venice | @hkmoa

where: Campo della Tana, Castello 2126, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

FISSURES OF LIGHT Diaspora: dissonances in Fa minor

 

what: Diaspora: dissonances in Fa minor

where: Palazzo Donà dalle Rose, Cannaregio 5038, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

HYBRIDS. LEANDRO ERLICH AL NEGOZIO OLIVETTI

 

Perception and transformation intersect in Hybrids, where Leandro Erlich stages a series of sculptural encounters within the historic Negozio Olivetti. Curated by Marcello Dantas, the exhibition brings together works that blur the boundaries between vegetal, mineral, architectural, and human forms. Conceived in dialogue with a space long associated with design and experimentation, the project follows a sequence of hybrid objects that oscillate between the familiar and the uncanny.

 

Erlich’s practice destabilises perception, inviting viewers to question what is seen, constructed, or imagined, while suggesting that form itself can act as a generative force. Operating at the intersection of illusion and material presence, Hybrids reflects on metamorphosis and the shifting thresholds between nature and artifice, proposing a fluid understanding of space, matter, and reality.

Leandro Erlich | image by Ignacio Coló

 

what: Hybrids by Leandro Erlich | @leandroerlichofficial

where: Negozio Olivetti, Piazza San Marco 101, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

IF ALL TIME IS ETERNALLY PRESENT

 

Moving image, architecture, and public space converge in this nocturnal presentation, presented by Pier Luigi Nervi Foundation at Campo Manin, where works by Tai Shani, Meriem Bennani & Orian Barki, and Kandis Williams are projected onto the facade of Palazzo Nervi Scattolin. Curated by Chiara Carrera and Marta Barina, the exhibition transforms the modernist building into a temporary screen where film, animation, and digital imagery unfold in dialogue with the city. Presented in the open piazza and activated after dark, the project shifts spectatorship from the gallery to the street, proposing a more accessible and collective encounter with contemporary art.

 

Across distinct visual languages, the works engage themes of migration, identity, urban space, and mediated experience, layering personal and geopolitical narratives through fragmented, time-based forms. Supported by Bottega Veneta, the exhibition extends the legacy of Venice as a site of exchange, linking the experimental energy of postwar modernism with present-day cultural production. Borrowing its title from T. S. Eliot, If All Time Is Eternally Present reflects on cyclical time and the coexistence of past and future, staging the façade as a living surface where images, bodies, and histories continuously reappear and transform.

Kandis Williams, A Travel Guide: Black Gothic in South Korean Horror, 2025. Video collage, 50 min. Courtesy the Artist. © Kandis Williams

 

what: If All Time Is Eternally Present: Kandis Williams, Meriem Bennani & Orian Barki, Tai Shani

where: Palazzo Nervi Scattolin, Campo Manin, San Marco 4866, Venice

when: May 9th – June 7th, 2026

 

 

INFINITO CABINET. Maria Cristina Crespo

 

A contemporary cabinet of curiosities unfolds in Infinito Cabinet, where Maria Cristina Crespo constructs an immersive, multi-layered installation shaped by literature, myth, and cultural memory. Curated by Giusy Caroppo, the exhibition by Eclettica Cultura dell’Arte reimagines the Wunderkammer as an expansive, associative system in which objects, images, and references accumulate across time and geography.

 

Drawing from sources that range from Ovid and Dante to The Thousand and One Nights, Crespo assembles an iconographic theatre populated by anthropomorphic forms, textile figures, and scenographic elements. Histories and mythologies intersect, dissolving distinctions between East and West, sacred and popular traditions, and past and present. Through this dense visual language, the work proposes knowledge as something constructed through juxtaposition, imagination, and continual reinterpretation.

Maria Cristina Crespo, Vaso Isadora Duncan, 2014. Ceramica a tre cotture | image by Studio Gubbioni © Eclettica.Cultura dell’Arte M.C. Crespo

 

what: Infinito Cabinet by Maria Cristina Crespo | @eclettica.arte

where: Riva San Biasio, Castello 2145, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

IVÁN TOVAR: LE RETOUR

 

A return across time and history shapes Le Retour, where Iván Tovar reappears at the Venice Biennale more than five decades after his participation in 1972. Curated by Christian Viveros-Fauné, the exhibition repositions Tovar as a key figure within Caribbean Surrealism and its global trajectories. Bringing together a selection of works that trace his distinctive visual language, the presentation unfolds through dreamlike compositions where organic forms, symbolic figures, and psychological landscapes intertwine. Tovar’s practice navigates between the intimate and the cosmic, constructing a surreal vocabulary that reflects both personal imagination and broader cultural currents. Framed as both return and reintroduction, Le Retour situates Tovar’s work within a wider art historical narrative, foregrounding its enduring relevance and its contribution to a more expansive understanding of modern and contemporary art.

Le Remord (Remorse), 2012 Oil On Canvas, 132 X 196 cm, Tovar Castillo Family Collection

 

 

what: Iván Tovar: Le Retour | @fundacionivantovar

where: Museo Storico Navale, Ex Istituto Idrografico, Riva San Biasio, Castello 2148, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

JACONE’S POLYPHONY

 

A polyphonic narrative unfolds in Macao’s collateral event, where curators Fung Yan and Ng Siu Ying bring together artists Fok Kai Seng, Ko Chi Wai, and Lee Fung Ying to explore layered histories of cultural exchange. Jacob’s Polyphony draws on the figure of Wu Li, also known as Jacone, a Qing dynasty artist who studied theology in Macao, positioning his trajectory as a lens through which to examine intersections of faith, identity, and artistic practice.

 

Structured through multiple voices and temporalities, the project, organized by Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Government of the Macao Special Administrative Region, Macao Museum of Art, constructs a dialogue between past and present, East and West, spirituality and contemporary experience. Rather than a singular narrative, it proposes a fragmented yet interconnected reading of history, where cultural flows are continuously translated and reinterpreted.

Jacone’s Polyphony Exhibition from Macao, China | image via Macao Museum of Art

 

what: Jacone’s Polyphony Exhibition from Macao, China 

where: Arsenale, Campo della Tana, Castello 2126/A, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

KAN YASUDA – ISOLE DEL SILENZIO

 

Marble becomes a vessel for stillness in Isole del Silenzio, where Japanese sculptor Kan Yasuda transforms stone into a meditative landscape of form and void. Presented by the Fondation d’Entreprise Wilmotte as an official Collateral Event of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, the exhibition unfolds as a ‘mineral garden’ composed of ten marble sculptures arranged like silent islands within space.

 

Carved with precision and restraint, Yasuda’s works embody the Japanese concept of Ma, the interval or charged emptiness between things, where absence becomes as significant as presence. Voids hollowed into the stone invite a slow, attentive encounter, establishing a quiet rhythm between mass and openness, light and shadow. In the subdued atmosphere of the exhibition, sculpture operates less as object and more as spatial experience, guiding the viewer toward a state of introspection.

what: Kan Yasuda – Isole del Silenzio | @kanyasuda.studio

where: Corte Nuova, Fondamenta dell’Abbazia, Cannaregio 3560, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

LEE UFAN at smac

 

A sustained meditation on matter, gesture, and perception unfolds in the major solo presentation of Lee Ufan at SMAC Venice. Curated by Jessica Morgan and developed in close dialogue with the artist, the exhibition brings together works spanning more than seven decades, tracing the evolution of a practice grounded in relational thinking and spatial awareness.

 

Occupying eight galleries within the Procuratie in Piazza San Marco, the presentation moves between painting, sculpture, and large-scale installation, alongside a new site-specific commission. Lee’s work, associated with both the Mono-ha movement and Dansaekhwa painting, resists representation in favor of encounter, where stone, steel, canvas, and void exist in a state of tension and balance. Across the exhibition, minimal gestures generate expansive perceptual fields, inviting a slower, more attentive mode of viewing. Rather than asserting form, Lee Ufan’s environments activate space itself, emphasizing intervals, silence, and the reciprocity between object and viewer. Timed to coincide with the artist’s 90th birthday, the exhibition positions his practice as both historically pivotal and continuously unfolding, reaffirming his enduring influence across global contemporary art.

Lee Ufan Relatum (formerly Iron Field), 1969/2019. Photo by Bill Jacobson Studio, New York. © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York

 

what: Lee Ufan | @ufanlee

where: SMAC – San Marco Art Centre | @smac_venice, Piazza San Marco 105, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

FONDAZIONE BVLGARI PRESENTS IN BIBLIOTECA NAZIONALE Marciana Lara Favaretto, Momentary Monument

 

Lara Favaretto and Monia Ben Hamouda present two site-specific installations at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice, marking the first exhibition promoted by Fondazione Bvlgari. Set within the historic interiors of Sansovino’s library, the project unfolds as a dialogue between contemporary practices and the institution’s architectural and cultural legacy. Favaretto occupies the Salone Sansovino with the concluding chapter of Momentary Monument – The Library, while Ben Hamouda intervenes in the vestibule spaces with Fragments of Fire Worship, introducing a parallel spatial and symbolic narrative.

 

what: Fondazione Bvlgari presents in Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana Lara Favaretto, Momentary Monument – The Library Monia Ben Hamouda, Fragments of Fire Worship

where: Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Piazza San Marco 13/A, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

NABATELE

 

Anna Kamyshan presents Nabatele, a large-scale open-air installation suspended above Venice’s Arsenale Nord, conceived as a floating architecture of memory and displacement. The work takes the form of a shtetl synagogue resting on a monumental rock, detached from the ground and hovering in space, proposing a condition of shelter without territory and belonging beyond fixed borders. Drawing from nabat, a call to attention in moments of urgency, and softened through the Yiddish suffix -ele, the project unfolds as a subtle yet persistent signal. Its illuminated windows evoke the ner tamid, the eternal flame, offering a quiet gesture of continuity and inner light amid instability. 

image via Nabatele

 

what: Nabatele – Museum of Jewish Montreal

where: Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice

when: May 9th – July 9th, 2026

 

 

NALINI MALANI – OF WOMAN BORN

 

In Of Woman Born, Nalini Malani transforms the historic Magazzini del Sale into a continuously shifting ‘thought chamber.’ Commissioned by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and curated by Roobina Karode, the exhibition is presented as a Collateral Event of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Extending her long-running Animation Chamber series, Malani constructs a multisensory installation composed of 67 animations and a layered soundscape of women’s voices.

 

Drawing on the myth of Orestes, the work reframes cycles of violence and justice through a contemporary lens, foregrounding the ongoing impact of war and patriarchal structures on women’s lives. Thousands of hand-drawn digital images unfold across nine channels, appearing and dissolving in a fluid, non-linear narrative that resists closure. Across the space, Malani’s practice merges the hand-drawn and the digital, the historical and the immediate, creating a visceral environment where viewers navigate overlapping temporalities and voices. The recurring figure of the Skipping Girl”extends the exhibition beyond its walls, activating the city through dispersed visual cues that guide visitors toward the site, turning Venice itself into an extension of the work.

Nalini Malani, Of Woman Born, 2026 9 channel iPad Animation Chamber, sound, dimensions variable Collection – Kiran Nadar Museum of Art © Nalini Malani

 

what: Nalini Malani – Of Woman Born, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art | @knmaindia

where: Magazzini del Sale n.5, Fondamenta Zattere ai Saloni, Dorsoduro 262, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

OFFICIAL. UNOFFICIAL. BELARUS.

 

Operating outside the structures of state representation, Official. Unofficial. Belarus. positions art as an act of resistance and reclamation. Presented by the Belarus Free Theatre, the exhibition marks a rare and deliberately ‘unofficial’ presence for Belarus on the international stage. Curated by Daniella Kaliada and Natalia Kaliada, the project transforms the interior of Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista into an immersive environment shaped by themes of surveillance, censorship, and control. 

 

Bringing together artists including Sergey Grinevich, Nicolai Khalezin, Rasmus Munk, Olga Podgaiskaya, and Vladimir Tsesler, the exhibition traces a lineage of Belarusian cultural production that has historically operated in parallel to official systems, from modernist figures like Marc Chagall to underground publishing and exile practices.

image via @belarusfreetheatre

 

what: Official. Unofficial. Belarus. | @belarusfreetheatre

where: Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista, San Polo 2454, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

PEDAGOGY OF HOPE

 

In this dispersed, voice-driven exhibition titled Pedagogy of Hope, GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo reactivates its experimental platform Radio GAMeC. Curated by Lorenzo Giusti and Lara Facco, the project reimagines radio as both a listening device and a pedagogical tool, extending exhibition-making into the realm of dialogue, exchange, and collective reflection.

 

Broadcast live during the Biennale’s opening week from Radio Vanessa, a historic independent station operating from Venice’s city center. the project establishes a temporary physical and sonic hub between the Arsenale and Giardini. From there, conversations, interviews, and contributions by artists, curators, researchers, and activists shape an evolving program that continues online throughout the Biennale, forming an open-access archive of voices. 

 

what: Pedagogy of Hope

where: Radio Vanessa, Castello 1923 (FM 101.8 MHz), Venice

when: May 5th – May 10th, 2026 (online until November 22nd, 2026)

 

 

RONALD VENTURA: LUNA

 

An immersive reflection on water, memory, and ecological fragility shapes Luna, an exhibition where Ronald Ventura transforms Venice’s industrial margins into a site of tidal imagination. Presented by Cloudgrey Gallery, the show is curated by Ruel Caasi and staged within the Docks Cantieri Cucchini. Bringing together more than a dozen newly produced works, Luna spans painting, drawing, and sculpture, incorporating materials such as resin and Murano glass.

 

Ventura’s layered visual language, where figuration, symbolism, and fragmentation coexist, unfolds here as a spatial narrative connecting Venice with his hometown of Malabon in the Philippines, both shaped by water and its instabilities. The moon becomes a central metaphor, evoking cycles, tides, and unseen forces that govern both natural systems and human life. 

Carousel, Ronald Ventura | image via @cloudgrey.gallery

 

what: Ronald Ventura: Luna

where: Docks Cantieri Cucchini, Castello 1/A, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

SCOTLAND + VENICE: BUGARIN + CASTLE

 

A charged, performative environment unfolds in Shame Parade, where artist duo Bugarin + Castle reframe histories of public humiliation through a queer and trans lens. Presented by Scotland + Venice and curated by Mount Stuart Trust, the project represents Scotland at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Spanning installation, moving image, sculpture, and performance, the exhibition draws on historic European shaming rituals, such as charivari and rough music, reimagining them as contemporary acts of resistance and collective expression.

 

Across a fragmented, carnival-like scenography, archival materials collide with popular culture, from medieval armour and court transcripts to karaoke and Filipino visual languages, reflecting the artists’ diasporic connections between Scotland and the Philippines.

Bugarin + Castle, Mr. Mimic [Submit to Sound], 2026, Photo (detail), Courtesy the Artists and Scotland + Venice © Bugarin + Castle

 

what: Bugarin + Castle | @scotlandvenice

where: Olivolo, Castello 59/C, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

SCREEN MELANCHOLY: LI YI-FAN

 

A disorienting, hyper-mediated environment takes shape in Screen Melancholy, where Li Yi-Fan examines how digital technologies reshape perception, authorship, and the experience of reality. Organized by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and curated by Raphael Fonseca, the exhibition represents Taiwan at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.

 

Conceived as a hybrid physical and virtual environment within the Palazzo delle Prigioni, the project combines a central video installation with fragmented sculptural elements dispersed throughout the space. Drawing on game engines, machinima, and self-developed image-making tools, Li constructs a labyrinthine scenography where viewers are simultaneously spectators and participants—caught in a loop of watching and being watched.

 

A single-channel video work performed by the artist anchors the exhibition, adopting the format of an online ‘educational’ monologue to unpack the infrastructures behind contemporary image production, from software systems to AI-generated visuals. Moving between satire and critique, Li Yi-Fan exposes the instability of meaning in an era defined by information overload, where perception is flattened and continuously recalibrated through screens.

Li Yi-Fan, Screen Melancholy (screenshot), 2026, 60min, video installation © Li Yi-Fan. Courtesy of the artist and TFAM of Taiwan Collateral Event 2026

 

what: Screen Melancholy by Li Yi-Fan

where: Palazzo delle Prigioni, Castello 4209, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

Shifting Waters ERES Foundation

 

Water becomes both subject and agent in Shifting Waters, a group exhibition presented by the ERES Foundation. Bringing together seven international artists, including Giorgio Andreotta Calò, Pamela Rosenkranz, and Lawrence Weiner, the exhibition is presented as a fluid reflection on the evolving relationship between humans and water systems.

 

Set within Fondazione ERES in the Castello district, the project situates Venice itself as both context and case study: a city historically shaped by water, now increasingly defined by its instability. Across sculpture, installation, and image-based works, the exhibition navigates tensions between adaptation and vulnerability, exploring water as a force that sustains, disrupts, and reshapes environments and societies.

Anne Duk Hee Jordan, Ghost Shrimp, 2019, Private Collection, Courtesy the artist and alexander levy, Berlin, © Anne Duk Hee Jordan, Photo: Hayo Heye

 

what: Shifting Waters

where: Fondazione ERES | @eresstiftung, Ca’ Sarasina, Castello 1228, Venice

when: May 9th – November 1st, 2026

 

 

SONG E YOON: SONGS ACROSS TIME

 

Song E Yoon: Songs Across Time brings together the practices of Song E Yoon and Frédéric Bruly Bouabré in a cross-generational dialogue through drawing, installation, and symbolic systems of knowledge. The exhibition is curated by Seohyun Kang and organised by The Foundation of ART NYC.

 

At its core, the project explores how visual language can function as a tool for navigating memory, identity, and human movement across time. Bouabré’s works, rooted in his creation of the Bété alphabet, operate as a system of recording and preserving cultural knowledge, while Song E Yoon’s immersive installations translate this impulse into spatial and experiential terms. 

 

what: Songs Across Time by Song E Yoon

where: Spazio 996/A, Fondamenta Sant’Anna, Castello 996/A, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

STILL JOY – FROM UKRAINE INTO THE WORLD

 

Presented by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and the PinchukArtCentre, Still Joy — From Ukraine into the World brings together Ukrainian and international artists to reflect on joy as a fragile yet persistent force shaped by war and displacement. Rooted in testimonies gathered by Nataliya Gumenyuk and Hlib Stryzhko, the exhibition unfolds through installations, film, and sound works that move between personal memory and collective experience. Featuring artists including Nikita Kadan, Zhanna Kadyrova, Tacita Dean, and Ryan Gander, the project traces moments of intimacy, resilience, and care. Across its layered presentation, joy emerges not as escape, but as a subtle act of resistance within a shifting and uncertain present.

 

what: Still Joy – from Ukraine into the World | @pinchukartcentre

where: Palazzo Contarini-Polignac, Dorsoduro 874, Venice

when: May 9th – August 1st, 2026

 

 

SU XIAOBAI’S ALCHEMICAL UNIVERSE

 

Su Xiaobai: Alchemical Universe presents a focused survey of Su Xiaobai’s practice, where painting is redefined through the ancient medium of lacquer. Bridging Chinese literati traditions and postwar European abstraction, the artist transforms lacquer into a dense, sculptural surface built through layered pigment, mineral powders, and organic materials. Rather than functioning as a coating, lacquer becomes substance. Applied in multiple layers, it produces works that shift between depth and opacity, revealing a slow, almost alchemical process of making. The exhibition traces this material evolution, highlighting Su’s move away from figuration toward a meditative exploration of surface, time, and transformation

Su Xiaobai and his work, STERN-2, 2023 | courtesy of Su Xiaobai Foundation

 

what: Su Xiaobai’s Alchemical Universe | @suxiaobaifoundation

where: Palazzo Soranzo Van Axel, Cannaregio 6099, 6071, 6072, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

TADEUSZ KANTOR (1915–1990). EMBALLAGE, CRICOTAGE AND MADAME JAREMA

 

Tadeusz Kantor (1915–1990). Emballage, Cricotage and Madame Jarema revisits the work of painter Tadeusz Kantor alongside painter and sculptor Maria Jarema, tracing a shared trajectory that shaped the post-war Polish avant-garde. Bringing together painting, theatrical objects, and archival material, it highlights Kantor’s interdisciplinary practice, spanning informel painting, assemblage, and performance, alongside Jarema’s pivotal yet often underacknowledged influence.

 

Structured around key phases of Kantor’s work, the exhibition moves from early abstraction to his concept of emballage and his later theatrical productions, including references to The Dead Class. In parallel, Jarema’s monotypes and stage designs foreground her role in the formation of the Cricot theatre, establishing a dialogue between visual art and performance.

 

what: Tadeusz Kantor (1915–1990). Emballage, Cricotage and Madame Jarema 

where: Procuratie Vecchie, Piazza San Marco 139–153/A, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

THE SPIRITS OF MARITIME CROSSING 2026

 

Bringing together 20 artists, The Spirits of Maritime Crossing 2026 explores migration, diaspora, and spiritual resilience across geographies. Curated by Apinan Poshyananda and presented at Palazzo Rocca Contarini Corfù, the exhibition features figures such as Marina Abramović, Pichet Klunchun, Martha Atienza, and Ong Kian Peng, alongside emerging voices from Southeast Asia. Through performance, film, installation, and sculpture, the project reflects on how experiences of displacement and ecological uncertainty are transformed into shared narratives and poetic forms.

 

 

what: The Spirits of Maritime Crossing 2026 | @smc.bkkartbiennale

where: Palazzo Rocca Contarini Corfù, Dorsoduro 1057/D, Venice

when: May 9th – August 2nd, 2026

 

 

TURANDOT: TO THE DAUGHTERS OF THE EAST

 

Inspired by the figure of Turandot, the enigmatic heroine of Giacomo Puccini’s opera, Turandot: To the Daughters of the East brings together eleven women artists from Central and West Asia. Presented at Palazzo Franchetti and curated by Ziba Ardalan, the exhibition reclaims Turandot beyond Western interpretations, positioning her as a symbol of strength, intellect, and autonomy. Through intergenerational practices, the project foregrounds voices that navigate cultural identity, history, and representation.

 

what: TURANDOT: To the Daughters of the East

where: Palazzo Franchetti, San Marco 2847, Venice

when: May 9th – October 31st, 2026

 

 

VYACHESLAV AKHUNOV: INSTRUMENTS OF THE MIND

 

Instruments of the Mind presents a landmark survey of Uzbek artist Vyacheslav Akhunov at Palazzo Franchetti, tracing over five decades of practice. Organized by the Centre for Contemporary Arts Tashkent, the exhibition brings together rarely seen works from the 1970s alongside recent pieces, unfolding a sustained reflection on memory, time, and spiritual consciousness.

 

Working within a conceptual framework, Akhunov transforms everyday situations, chance encounters, and moments of irony into reflections on how thought processes construct reality. The exhibition foregrounds the mind’s role in connecting, interpreting, and reconfiguring experience, positioning cognition itself as a medium. Through subtle and often humorous gestures, Akhunov’s works invite viewers to reconsider how meaning is formed, shifting attention from the external world to the mechanisms through which it is understood.

 

what: Vyacheslav Akhunov: Instruments of the Mind

where: Palazzo Franchetti, San Marco 2847, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

“ _____________” *
* Gaza – No Words – See the Exhibit

 

The Gaza Genocide Tapestry is a collective embroidered work created by Palestinian women across the West Bank, refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan, and diasporic communities. Composed of 100 panels using traditional tatreez techniques, the project documents lived experiences of loss, memory, and resilience in Gaza since October 2023.

 

Developed as a form of testimony, the tapestry transforms stitching into an act of witnessing, where each thread records fragments of lives, places, and histories under threat. Moving across geographies, from Ramallah to Southern Lebanon and beyond, the work brings together dispersed voices into a shared visual archive that insists on remembrance in the face of devastation.

image via @ecc_italy

 

what: Gaza – No Words – See the Exhibit

where: Palazzo Mora, Strada Nova, Cannaregio 3659, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

AGHRAB IDRĀK: THRESHOLDS OF PERCEPTION

 

what: Aghrab Idrāk: Thresholds of Perception

where: Palazzo Cavanis, Fondamenta Zattere ai Gesuati, Dorsoduro 920, Venice

when: May 9th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

around venice

 

Ceal Floyer, unfinished

 

Conceptual artist Ceal Floyer will be remembered with a show in Venice opening this May – six months after her death aged 57. The show, called Unfinished, will run at the Palazzo Diedo – Berggruen Arts&Culture until November 22nd, coinciding with this year’s biennale.

 

Among the works included are her sound piece ‘Til I Get It Right which plays an edited snatch of a song by country singer Tammy Wynette on a loop and 1999’s Bucket where a CD player plays the sound of a water drop falling every few seconds. Floyer, who grew up in the UK and studied at London’s Goldsmiths College, spent many years in Berlin where she lived and worked up until her death last December.

Ceal Floyer, 644, 2025, Inkjet print on museum board, 45 x 67 cm. Photo © Timo Ohler © Ceal Floyer / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026.

 

what: Ceal Floyer, Unfinished

where: Palazzo Diedo, Venice

when: May 4th, 2026 – November 22nd 2026

 

 

Strange Rules

 

Presented by Berggruen Arts & Culture at Palazzo Diedo, Strange Rules is an interdisciplinary project conceived by Mat Dryhurst, Holly Herndon, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, in collaboration with Adriana Rispoli. Opening alongside the 61st International Art Exhibition, the project positions the palazzo as an active site of research and production.

 

Centered on the notion of Protocol Art, the exhibition examines the invisible systems that shape how culture is created, circulated, and understood in a digital context. Through a major new collaborative commission and a series of site-specific installations and video works, the project reframes the historic building as a testing ground for new forms of artistic and technological exchange.

Strange Rules, curated by Mat Dryhurst, Holly Herndon, Hans Ulrich Obrist, with Adriana Rispoli

 

what: Strange Rules

where: Palazzo Diedo, Venice

when: opening May 4th, 2026

 

 

Anish Kapoor: Palazzo Manfrin

 

Anish Kapoor’s major exhibition at Palazzo Manfrin marks a rare public opening of the historic Cannaregio building, now home to the artist’s foundation. Bringing together around 100 architectural models spanning five decades, alongside large-scale installations and stainless-steel works, the show traces Kapoor’s ongoing investigation into form, void, and perception. Across realised and unrealised projects, the presentation reflects his distinctive approach to the object as a generator of space, shaping the viewer’s physical and sensory experience.

At the Edge of the World II, 1998, Fibreglass and pigment, 3x8x8m, Photograph: David Stjernholm © Anish Kapoor. All rights reserved, 2026

 

what: Anish Kapoor at Palazzo Manfrin

where: Palazzo Manfrin, Cannaregio, Venice, Italy
when: May 5th– August 8th, 2026

 

 

Amoako Boafo at Museo di Palazzo Grimani

 

At Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Amoako Boafo presents ‘It doesn’t have to always make sense’, his first solo exhibition in Italy, introducing a new body of paintings that reengage portraiture through the lens of Black identity and Venetian art history. Produced by Gagosian, the exhibition positions Boafo’s tactile, finger-painted figures within the richly layered architecture of the Renaissance palazzo. Conceived in direct response to its setting, the project establishes a dialogue between contemporary painting and the decorative language of Venice.

 

Boafo draws on damask patterns, Burano lace, and textile traditions, reinterpreting them through Ghanaian color palettes and material experimentation. His portraits, often depicting friends, loved ones, and himself, assert presence and individuality, while simultaneously embedding new narratives into a historically Eurocentric visual canon. Extending beyond painting, the exhibition unfolds as an immersive environment where wallpaper, video, and poetic elements contribute to a ‘total ecosystem’ of representation. Within this spatial composition, Boafo reframes the relationship between subject, surface, and site, transforming Palazzo Grimani into a space where past and present, identity and history, intersect.

Amoako Boafo, Two Faces, 2021 – 25 Oil and embroidery on canvas, 70 3/4 x 59 inches (180 x 150 cm) © Amoako Boafo, Photo: Nii Odzenma, Courtesy the artist and Gagosian

 

what: Amoako Boafo: It doesn’t have to always make sense

where: Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Venice
when: May 6th – November 22nd 2026

 

 

fondazione dries van noten

 

Fondazione Dries Van Noten opens in Venice with its inaugural exhibition at Palazzo Pisani Moretta, introducing a new platform dedicated to craftsmanship as a living, evolving practice. Founded by Dries Van Noten, the space activates the layered interiors of the Venetian Gothic palazzo, overlooking the Grand Canal, as a site where historical legacy and contemporary production intersect.

 

Curated by Dries Van Noten together with Geert Bruloot, The Only True Protest Is Beauty unfolds across more than twenty rooms, bringing together over two hundred works spanning fashion, art, design, and material experimentation. Contemporary contributions, including works by designers and artists like Christian Lacroix and Comme des Garçons, are embedded within this historical fabric, emphasizing craftsmanship as a shared language across time and geographies.

image courtesy of Fondazione Dries Van Noten

 

what: The Only True Protest Is Beauty

when: April  25th – October 4th, 2026

where: Palazzo Pisani Moretta, Venice

 

 

Joseph Kosuth – The-exchange-value-of-language-has-fallen-to-zero

 

On view at Casa dei Tre Oci, The-exchange-value-of-language-has-fallen-to-zero by Joseph Kosuth is presented by Berggruen Arts & Culture and Berggruen Institute Europe. A key figure in conceptual art, Kosuth foregrounds language as both subject and material, examining how meaning is constructed through context. The exhibition spans early works from the 1960s, including One and Three Mirrors (1965), to a new large-scale neon commission, A Chain of Resemblance (2026), based on a text by Michel Foucault. Together, the works probe the instability of language, revealing how interpretation shifts depending on setting, perception, and use.

Clock (One and Five) © Marco Cappelletti

 

what: Joseph Kosuth, The-exchange-value-of-language-has-fallen-to-zero

where: Casa dei Tre Oci, Fondamenta Zitelle, 43, 30133 Venezia
when: March 28th – November 22nd 2026

 

 

GEORG BASELITZ. EROI D’ORO

 

At Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Georg Baselitz presents Eroi d’Oro, a new series of large-scale paintings that explore the tension between luminous gold grounds and loosely rendered figuration. Supported by Thaddaeus Ropac, the exhibition highlights Baselitz’s continued engagement with the body through a painterly language that moves between drawing and dense, expressive color.

Georg Baselitz, Die goldene Kittelschürze (detail), 2025. Oil and gold paint on canvas. 300 × 215 cm. © Georg Baselitz 2026. Photo: Stefan Altenberger

 

what: Georg Baselitz, Eroi d’Oro

where: Fondazione Giorgio Cini | @fondazionecini, Venice

when: May 5th – September 27th, 2026

 

 

DAVID SALLE. PRESENT-TENSE PAINTING

 

At Palazzo Cini Gallery, David Salle presents Present-Tense Painting, a new body of work that revisits his Tapestry Paintings from the early 1990s through a custom-trained AI model. Layering references from Russian tapestries and Italian painting traditions with digital processes, the exhibition explores how multiple temporalities can coexist on a single pictorial surface.

David Salle, Workplace (detail), 2025-2026. Oil, acrylic, flashe and charcoal on archival UV print on linen. 182.9 × 236.2 cm. © David Salle / ARS, New York 2026. Photo: John Berens

 

what: David Salle, Present-Tense Painting

where: Palazzo Cini Gallery, Venice

when: May 5th – September 27th, 2026

 

 

ERWIN WURM. DREAMERS

 

The Museo Fortuny presents a major monographic exhibition dedicated to Erwin Wurm, tracing his long-standing exploration of sculpture as a fluid and performative medium. Wurm uses humor and absurdity to question identity, social norms, and the pressures of contemporary life. Spanning multiple floors, the exhibition brings together key works including the One Minute Sculptures, where viewers are invited to activate everyday objects through temporary poses, transforming themselves into sculptures.

 

Alongside these, series such as Dreamers and Substitutes explore the body through absence, distortion, and anthropomorphic forms, positioning clothing and domestic materials as extensions of human presence. Set within the layered interiors of Palazzo Fortuny, the exhibition establishes a dialogue between Wurm’s unstable, ironic forms and the historical richness of the site.

Erwin Wurm, Fat House, 2003, Mixed media, 5,4 x 10 x 7 m

 

what: Erwin Wurm, Dreamers 

where: Museo Fortuny | @visitmuve, Venice

when: May 6th – November 22nd 2026

 

 

Gabrielle Goliath – Elegy

 

Gabrielle Goliath’s Elegy is presented as an independent exhibition during the 61st Venice Biennale, transforming the Chiesa di Sant’Antonin into a space of collective mourning and care. First developed in 2015 as an ongoing performance project, the work is reconfigured here as a multi-channel video installation, where voice, breath, and song converge into a shared ritual of lament.

 

Staged in the wake of the cancellation of the South African Pavilion, the presentation also operates as a gesture of solidarity, sustained through a network of collaborators and supporters. Within the church, newly realised sequences unfold across monumental video structures, each responding to specific lives and histories marked by violence and loss. The installation commemorates figures including Palestinian poet Heba Abunada and South African student Ipeleng Christine Moholane, alongside Nama women ancestors, holding space for grief as a collective and political act. 

Gabrielle Goliath, Elegy – for a poet, 2025, photo by Zunis

 

what: Elegy by Gabrielle Goliath | @gabriellegoliath

where: Chiesa di Sant’Antonin, Salizada S. Antonin 3477, Venice

when: May 5th – July 31st, 2026

 

 

EMILIA KABAKOV. VENETIAN DIARY

 

Venetian Diary by Emilia Kabakov is a participatory installation that transforms Venice into a collective self-portrait. Developed from a concept initiated with Ilya Kabakov, the project continues their exploration of the ‘total installation’ where personal narratives expand into shared, immersive environments.

 

Installed within Ca’ Tron, the work invites hundreds of Venetian residents to contribute diary entries and symbolic objects, forming an evolving archive of memories, desires, and everyday life. Rather than representing the city, the exhibition is constructed with it, positioning Venice as both subject and collaborator. Curated by Cesare Biasini Selvaggi and Giulia Abate, and presented by Thaddaeus Ropac, Venetian Diary reflects on community, authorship, and collective storytelling.

Ilya & Emilia Kabakov The Fallen Chandelier, first realised 1997 Chandelier: 136 x 131 cm Installation view, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London, 2017

 

what: Emilia Kabakov, Venetian Diary 

where: Ca’ Tron, Venice
when: May 9th – June 28th, 2026

 

 

LORNA SIMPSON. THIRD PERSON

 

At Punta della Dogana, Lorna Simpson presents Third Person, her first large-scale solo exhibition in Europe dedicated to over a decade of painting. Curated by Emma Lavigne, the exhibition brings together recent and newly commissioned works, highlighting Simpson’s layered approach to image-making, where identity, memory, and representation unfurl through fragmented and reassembled visual narratives.

Installation view, ‘Lorna Simpson. Source Notes,’ 2025, The Metropolitan Museum of Art © Lorna Simpson. Courtesy of The Met. Photo by Eileen Travell

 

what: Lorna Simpson, Third Person

where: Punta della Dogana, Venice

when: Until November 22nd 2026

 

 

PAULO NAZARETH. ALGEBRA

 

Algebra at Punta della Dogana surveys more than twenty years of Paulo Nazareth’s practice, bringing together existing and previously unseen works drawn from the Pinault Collection. Curated by Fernanda Brenner, the exhibition transforms the former customs house into a space of movement and accumulation, where questions of geography, identity, and circulation are explored through installation and performance-based approaches.

(floor) Paulo Nazareth, Cadernos de Africa, 2014, Pinault Collection. Installation view, “Paulo Nazareth. Algebra”, 2026, Punta della Dogana, Venezia. Ph. Jacopo Salvi © Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection (wall, from left to right) Paulo Nazareth, Southern África, 2017, Pinault Collection; West África, 2017, Pinault Collection; North África, 2017, Pinault Collection. Installation view, “Paulo Nazareth. Algebra”, 2026, Punta della Dogana, Venezia. Ph. Jacopo Salvi © Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection

 

what: Paulo Nazareth, Algebra

where: Punta della Dogana, Venice

when: Until November 22nd 2026

 

 

MICHAEL ARMITAGE. THE PROMISE OF CHANGE

 

At Palazzo Grassi, Michael Armitage presents a major solo exhibition that brings together paintings and studies spanning recent years, offering a layered insight into one of the most compelling voices in contemporary painting. Curated by Jean-Marie Gallais, the exhibition occupies two floors, tracing the artist’s evolving visual language between documentary observation and dreamlike fiction.

 

Working between Kenya and Indonesia, Armitage draws from political events, personal memory, literature, and mythology, constructing compositions where multiple temporalities and perspectives coexist. Figures emerge within dense, often ambiguous landscapes, where reality and imagination blur into one another. A defining aspect of Armitage’s practice is his use of bark cloth as a support, a traditional material whose irregular texture, marked by seams, tears, and folds, becomes integral to the image. 

 

what: Michael Armitage, The Promise of Change
where: Palazzo Grassi, Venice

when: until January 10th, 2027

 

 

AMAR KANWAR. CO-TRAVELLERS

 

Co-travellers by Amar Kanwar, on view at Palazzo Grassi, features together two major multimedia installations that span nearly two decades of practice, curated by Jean-Marie Gallais for the Pinault Collection. Kanwar’s work operates at the intersection of art, cinema, and political testimony, exploring questions of power, resistance, and memory across South Asia.

 

The exhibition pairs The Torn First Pages (2004–2008), a work documenting acts of resistance against Myanmar’s military regime, with The Peacock’s Graveyard (2023), a more recent, meditative installation composed of text-based fables and abstract imagery. 

Amar Kanwar, The Torn First Pages, 2004-2008, Collection of the artist. Installation view Amar Kanwar. Co-travellers, 2026 Ph. Marco Cappelletti Studio © Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection

 

what: Amar Kanwar, Co-travellers

where: Palazzo Grassi, Venice

when: Until January 10th, 2027

 

 

PICASSO, MORANDI, PARMIGGIANI. STILL LIFES

 

Presented at Galleria di Piazza San Marco by the Istituzione Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, this exhibition brings together three pivotal figures, Pablo Picasso, Giorgio Morandi, and Claudio Parmiggiani, in a focused dialogue on the still life as a site of experimentation and reflection. Curated by Cécile Debray and organized by Tornabuoni Art, the project unfolds as a comparative study of how objects are staged, transformed, and reimagined within the space of the studio.

 

The exhibition reveals still life as a dynamic field where reality is both constructed and destabilized. From Picasso’s fragmented and assembled compositions, which expand the language of Cubism, to Morandi’s quiet yet rigorous arrangements of everyday objects, and Parmiggiani’s haunting Delocazioni, where forms emerge through absence and trace, each practice reflects a distinct negotiation between presence and disappearance. 

Picasso, Nature morte buste, coupe et palette, 1932

 

what: Picasso, Morandi, Parmiggiani: Still Lifes
where: Galleria di Piazza San Marco, Venice

when: May 7th – July 25th, 2026

 

 

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF ‘CAHIERS D’ART’

 

At Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a focused installation marks the centenary of Cahiers d’Art, the influential journal founded by Christian Zervos in 1926. Presented within the galleries of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, the display brings a selection of historic issues into dialogue with works from the museum’s permanent collection.

 

Spanning the 1920s to the 1950s, the ten issues on view trace the publication’s role as a critical platform for the development of modernism. Featuring artists such as Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Henri Matisse, alongside writers including Samuel Beckett and Georges Bataille, Cahiers d’Art functioned as a ‘portable museum,’ shaping the visual and theoretical language of the avant-garde as it emerged. The presentation also highlights the close relationship between the journal and Peggy Guggenheim herself, whose collection is reflected in its pages and whose 1955 essay on Constantin Brancusi underscores her active role within this international network. 

image via Peggy Guggenheim Collection

 

what: One Hundred Years of Cahiers d’Art

where: Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
when: On view through fall 2026

 

 

matriclysm: an archaeology of connections lost

 

At Salone Verde in Venice, the American singer-songwriter Jewel presents her largest visual art exhibition to date, unfolding as an immersive environment that bridges sculpture, painting, textile, sound, and data-driven installation. Curated by Joe Thompson and organized with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the project expands her multidisciplinary practice into a spatial, sensorial experience.

 

Structured around three central works, First Mother, Heart of the Ocean, and The Seven Sisters, the exhibition assembles a fragmented archaeology of feminine memory. These anchors are surrounded by objects and environments that trace the erosion of matriarchal knowledge systems, exploring themes of motherhood, care, and the disconnection between body, land, and lineage.

Detail shot from the Ceremony Series

 

what: Matriclysm: An Archaeology of Connections Lost 

where: Salone Verde, Venice

when: May 6th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

Matthew Wong: Interiors

 

Matthew Wong: Interiors at Palazzo Tiepolo Passi offers a focused look at a key theme in the late painter’s practice. Organised by the Matthew Wong Foundation and curated by John Cheim, the exhibition brings together around 35 rarely seen and previously unexhibited works.

 

Centered on both physical and psychological interiors, the presentation traces how Matthew Wong constructs intimate, often solitary spaces that blur perception and emotion. Accompanied by a scholarly publication with a text by Nancy Spector, the exhibition offers a deeper reading of Wong’s introspective visual language and its place within his broader oeuvre.

Night Moods, 2018. Oil on canvas. 36 x 48 inches, 91.4 x 121.9 centimeters. © 2025 Matthew Wong Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photography by Alex Yudzon.

 

what: Matthew Wong: Interiors
where: Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, San Polo, 2774, Venice
when: May 6th – November 1st, 2026

 

 

CHIHULY: Venice 2026

 

Dale Chihuly presents CHIHULY: Venice 2026, marking thirty years since his landmark Chihuly Over Venice project. New large-scale glass sculptures are installed along the Grand Canal, reactivating the artist’s long-standing dialogue with the city’s light, water, and architectural fabric.

 

An accompanying interpretive and archival exhibition at Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, curated by Suzanne Geiss, contextualises both the historic 1990s intervention and the new works. Presented by Pilchuck Glass School and Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, the exhibition traces Chihuly’s enduring influence on contemporary glass and site-specific installation.

Dale Chihuly, Gold Tower (detail), 2025 © 2025 Chihuly Studio. All rights reserved. Photo by Nathaniel Willson

 

what: CHIHULY: Venice 2026

where: Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Campo S. Stefano, Venezia and various sites along the Grand Canal when: May 5th – November 14th, 2026

 

 

the dreamer

 

Conceived by director Cristiana Collu, The Dreamer is a long-form exhibition presented by Fondazione Querini Stampalia that unfolds across the historic palazzo as a series of cinematic sets, each stage animated by the life and legacy of Giovanni Querini Stampalia, the 19th-century heir who bequeathed his palace, collections, and library to the city of Venice in an act of radical public generosity.

 

Taking its title from Delmore Schwartz’s reworking of Yeats ‘in dreams begin responsibilities,’ the exhibition traces the tension between imagination and ethical commitment, moving through family obsessions, late-night library culture, and the thundering world of stables and fencing, before arriving at the terms of the 1869 will that made the Foundation possible.

The Dreamer, Fondazione Querini Stampalia

 

what: The Dreamer

where: Fondazione Querini Stampalia | @fondazionequerinistampalia, Campo Santa Maria Formosa 5252, Venice

when: May 5th, 2026 – April 30th, 2027

 

 

The Materiality of Judy Chicago

 

At Galleria Alberta Pane, Judy Chicago presents a solo exhibition that traces six decades of practice through the lens of material experimentation. Curated by Allison Raddock, the exhibition offers a concentrated overview of Chicago’s work while introducing a new body of sculptures debuting in Venice.

 

A pioneering figure in feminist art, Chicago has consistently challenged artistic hierarchies by embracing media historically associated with craft, ceramics, embroidery, glass, and textiles, alongside painting and installation. The exhibition brings together key series from across her career, from early minimalist works and pieces related to The Dinner Party to later projects such as Birth Project and PowerPlay, revealing the continuity of her engagement with gender, identity, and power. At its core is the new series Lilies/Goddesses, developed in collaboration with international studios and presented here for the first time. 

© Chicago Woodman LLC; Judy Chicago / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: © Chicago Woodman LLC; Donald Woodman / ARS, New York.

 

what: The Materiality of Judy Chicago

where: Galleria Alberta Pane | @galeriealbertapane, Venice
when: May 8th – November 22nd, 2026

 

 

tide of returns

 

TBA21–Academy opens its 2026 season at Ocean Space with Tide of Returns, an exhibition shaped through the artistic research of the Repatriates Collective. Bringing together artists and Indigenous communities across continents, the project considers repatriation as a cultural, ecological, and emotional act mediated through water.

 

Inside the former Church of San Lorenzo, immersive installations unfold across both wings. In the west wing, a large-scale environment of sand, shells, textile figures, and sound forms a ceremonial landscape of memory and return. Drawing from Indigenous knowledge systems, the installation connects ancestral storytelling, material culture, and oceanic geographies, framing repatriation as a form of continuity rather than recovery. In the east wing, Verena Melgarejo Weinandt presents a textile and video installation centered on gestures of care. Braided fabrics, flowing water, and performative acts of washing and weaving create a quiet meditation on interconnection, where rivers, bodies, and histories merge into cyclical processes of healing and transmission.

Repatriates Collective, “From My Mother’s Country”, 2026. Exhibition view of “Tide of Returns”, , Ocean Space, Venice. Commissioned and produced by TBA21-Academy. Photo: Jacopo Salvi

 

what: Tide of Returns
where: Ocean Space | @oceanspaceorg, Chiesa di San Lorenzo, Castello 5069, Venice
when: March 28 – October 11, 2026

 

 

DOKU The Illusion

 

At Espace Louis Vuitton Venezia, Lu Yang presents DOKU The Illusion, an immersive solo exhibition that merges digital identity, Buddhist philosophy, and speculative futures. Curated by Claire Staebler, the project unfolds as a cybernetic sanctuary where video, sculpture, and sound converge.

 

At the center is the latest chapter of the artist’s ongoing DOKU series, a virtual avatar generated from Lu Yang’s own likeness. Projected on a monumental LED screen, the film follows this shape-shifting figure through dreamlike landscapes, blurring the boundaries between physical and digital existence. Drawing from Buddhist concepts of illusion, reincarnation, and awakening, the work reflects on the instability of identity in an age shaped by avatars, AI, and virtual embodiment. The installation extends spatially through mirrored surfaces and sculptural elements, including Buddha figures holding the wheel of life. Visitors become embedded within the environment, their reflections folded into the work, turning spectatorship into a fleeting, participatory state.

DOKU The Illusion (2026) Video installation, color, sound © Lu Yang

 

what: DOKU The Illusion 

where: Espace Louis Vuitton Venezia. Calle del Ridotto 1351, Venice

when: May 8th – October 4th, 2026

 

 

drift, shy society

 

DRIFT brings a fleeting, luminous intervention to Venice with Shy Society, a site-specific kinetic installation suspended above the Grand Canal. Positioned on the facade of Palazzo Balbi, between the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the Ponte dell’Accademia, the work transforms the most iconic waterway of the city into a temporary stage of light and movement.

 

Developed by Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta, the installation evolves from the studio’s long-running Shylight series. A constellation of silk-based kinetic sculptures opens and closes in slow, rhythmic sequences, echoing the nyctinastic behavior of flowers. Controlled through robotics and light, the elements pulse in synchrony with a resting heartbeat, creating a subtle, shared tempo across the urban landscape. 

 

what: Shy Society by DRIFT | @studio.drift

where: Palazzo Balbi, Grand Canal (between Peggy Guggenheim Collection and Ponte dell’Accademia), Venice

when: May 3rd – May 10th, 2026

 

 

Wallace Chan vessels of other worlds

 

Wallace Chan presents Vessels of Other Worlds, a dual-site exhibition spanning Venice and Shanghai. Curated by James Putnam, the project introduces a new body of monumental titanium sculptures that expand the artist’s long-standing exploration of transformation, light, and transcendence.

 

The first chapter opens within the Chapel of Santa Maria della Pietà, where three central sculptural ‘vessels’ are surrounded by suspended forms resembling drops in motion. Drawing on the symbolism of sacred oils and the cycles of life, the installation merges religious references with speculative, almost otherworldly forms, creating a fluid environment between the tangible and the immaterial. A triptych of video works positioned on the altar acts as a conceptual bridge to the second chapter at the Long Museum West Bund, where the sculptures reappear at monumental scale. There, the works become immersive structures, inviting viewers to enter and experience their reflective, kaleidoscopic interiors, extending Chan’s exploration of perception and illusion.

Wallace Chan, Vessels of Other Worlds, Venice, Growth Sculpture

 

what: Wallace Chan, Vessels of Other Worlds

where: Chapel of Santa Maria della Pietà, Venice

when: May 8th – October 18th, 2026

 

 

the invisible chord: hans hartung and music

 

Hans Hartung’s deeply personal relationship with sound takes center stage at Fondazione Querini Stampalia, where nearly eighty works trace the sonic undercurrents of his practice. Curated by Thomas Schlesser, the exhibition reveals how music functioned not as inspiration, but as a necessary condition for creation. Spanning from the 1920s to the late 1980s, the presentation situates Hartung’s gestural abstraction within a continuous field of rhythm, movement, and intensity.

 

From the structured compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach to the expansive atmospheres of Pink Floyd, his studio operated as a charged acoustic environment where painting emerged through listening. Hartung approached music physically and intuitively, translating sonic energy into line, spray, and mark. Archival materials, studio tools, and film fragments deepen this reading, offering insight into the artist’s working process and his obsession with continuous sound.

Hans Hartung, T1988-R9 / T1988-R10, 1988, Acrylic on canvas, 250 × 320 cm. © Hans Hartung / ADAGP, Paris 2026. Photo: Tanguy Beurdeley. Courtesy of Fondation Hartung Bergman and Perrotin

 

what: The Invisible Chord, Hans Hartung and Music

where: Fondazione Querini Stampalia | @fondazionequerinistampalia, Campo Santa Maria Formosa 5252, Venice

when: May 5th, 2026 – September 13th, 2026

 

 

We Rise by Lifting Others by Marinella Senatore

 

Marinella Senatore presents We Rise by Lifting Others, a participatory exhibition developed in collaboration with The Human Safety Net. Emerging from workshops with families in Warsaw, Mestre, and Palermo, the project unfolds as a collective process where personal narratives, gestures, and shared experiences shape the artistic outcome. Through writing, storytelling, and movement, participants contribute to a body of work that reframes vulnerability as a space for connection, resilience, and collective imagination.

 

The exhibition takes form through a monumental light installation inspired by Southern Italian luminaria traditions and a series of embroidered tapestries that weave together text and imagery generated during the workshops. Installed within the Art Studio of The Home of The Human Safety Net, the project enters into dialogue with the foundation’s permanent exhibition, extending its focus on social inclusion and the development of human potential through a shared, co-creative framework.

The Human Safety Net, Marinella Senatore, We Rise by Lifting Others

 

what: We Rise by Lifting Others by Marinella Senatore
where: The Home of The Human Safety Net, Piazza San Marco 105, Venice
when: May 7th, 2026 – March 22nd, 2027

 

 

Ahmet Güneştekin Sessizlik / Silenzio / Silence

 

Ahmet Güneştekin returns to Italy with Sessizlik / Silenzio / Silence, a solo exhibition curated by Sergio Risaliti that marks the opening of the Güneştekin Foundation at Palazzo Gradenigo in Venice. Spread across the palazzo’s interiors and exterior, the exhibition assembles newly produced bronze sculptures and paintings into a staged environment where figures appear suspended between presence and absence.

 

Many of the sculptures take shape from the workers who restored the building, portrayed in moments that subtly mirror the movement of visitors through the space. Silence operates here as both subject and atmosphere, unfolding through themes of memory, erasure, and the loss of language. Sculptural bodies encounter richly worked paintings embedded with reclaimed doors and layered iconographies drawn from Anatolia and the wider Mediterranean. 

Palazzo Gradenigo in Venice

 

what: Sessizlik / Silenzio / Silence by Ahmet Güneştekin

where: Güneştekin Foundation, Palazzo Gradenigo, Campo Santa Giustina, Venice

when: May 6th – November 1st, 2026

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